# Dr. Mitchell — The Lost Girl character guide

> Dr. Mitchell in The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mitchell

**First appearance:** 0002-iii-the-maternity-nurse

## Snapshot

The respectable doctor who wants to marry Alvina, offering her safety and status she can't quite accept, and whose quiet persistence drives her to the cliffs of Scarborough to escape both him and Ciccio.

## Who they are

Dr. Mitchell is the solid, socially acceptable suitor in Alvina Houghton's life, a man who employs her as a maternity nurse and assumes a marriage she has never actually agreed to. His patient certainty—he has given her no definite word, yet the engagement hovers—becomes one of the importunities she flees, since she is sick of being badgered about and doesn't really want to marry anybody. He matters because he embodies the safe, conventional future Alvina keeps refusing, making her eventual choices feel like genuine self-definition rather than mere romance.

## Relationships

### [Alvina Houghton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/characters/alvina_houghton)

_professional_

Dr. Mitchell is a physician and family friend who provides medical care and guidance to Alvina.

### [Alvina Houghton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/characters/alvina_houghton)

_professional_

Dr. Mitchell is a physician and family friend who provides medical care and guidance to Alvina.

### [Alvina Houghton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/characters/alvina_houghton)

_professional_

Dr. Mitchell is a physician and family friend who provides medical care and guidance to Alvina.

## In the story

### [XI: Honourable Engagement](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/chapters/xi-honourable-engagement)

A wealthy Scottish bachelor doctor, autocratic with patients, who decides to marry Alvina and proposes on August Bank Holiday 1914.

### [Allaye Also Is Engaged](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/chapters/xii-allaye-also-is-engaged)

Alvina's fiancé, mentioned as the reason for her engagement, which she feels pigeonholes her in Lancaster.

### [XVI: Suspense](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/chapters/xvi-suspense)

Sends an insulting letter to Alvina, accusing her of carrying on with a dirty Italian organ-grinder.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/characters/dr_mitchell
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lost_girl_se/characters