Lady Chatterley’s Lover Character Analysis

Lady Constance Chatterley

Born Constance Reid, Connie Chatterley is Sir Malcolm Reid’s daughter, Hilda’s younger sister, and Clifford Chatterley’s wife. Throughout the novel, Connie is distinguished by her hyper-feminine appearance and her intuitive grace. Though… read analysis of Lady Constance Chatterley

Oliver Mellors

Oliver Mellors is the gamekeeper for Clifford’s Wragby estate and the man that Connie begins an affair with. Though Mellors is working-class, his years in the military have endowed him with a degree of… read analysis of Oliver Mellors

Sir Clifford Chatterley

Sir Clifford Chatterley is Constance’s husband, Sir Geoffrey’s son, and Emma Chatterley’s younger brother. After his father dies, Clifford inherits his father’s baronet status (making him a low-ranking member of the British… read analysis of Sir Clifford Chatterley

Mrs. Ivy Bolton

Ivy Bolton is a local widow in Tevershall, whom Clifford eventually hires as a nurse. Though Mrs. Bolton is bossy and authoritative with the colliers of her small town, with Clifford, she becomes quiet and… read analysis of Mrs. Ivy Bolton

Michaelis

Michaelis is an Irish writer, known and beloved across the US and the UK for his popular plays satirizing wealthy society. Though Clifford does not like Michaelis, he invites him to Wragby in a bid… read analysis of Michaelis

Sir Malcolm Reid

Sir Malcolm Reid is a prominent R.A. and painter, the father of both Hilda and Constance. Though Sir Malcolm has earned great social status and wealth by the time the novel begins, he still… read analysis of Sir Malcolm Reid

Hilda

Hilda is Sir Malcolm’s eldest child and Connie’s older sister. Though the two girls were close in their youth, as they get older, Hilda becomes more similar to her mother: snobby and easily… read analysis of Hilda

Duncan Forbes

Duncan Forbes is a well-known painter and a longstanding friend of Sir Malcolm Reid. Constance likes Duncan for his easy-going manners, even if she (and Mellors) think his art, with its abstract “tubes… read analysis of Duncan Forbes

Sir Geoffrey Chatterley

Sir Geoffrey Chatterley is Clifford and Emma’s father and the wealthy gentleman in charge of Wragby. Sir Clifford is a baronet—meaning he is a low-ranking member of the English aristocracy—and he values his Midlands… read analysis of Sir Geoffrey Chatterley

Miss Emma Chatterley

Emma Chatterley is Sir Geoffrey’s middle child and Clifford’s older sister. She resents Clifford for marrying—the siblings had once sworn they would never do so—and she makes Connie feel unwelcome when she first… read analysis of Miss Emma Chatterley

Squire Leslie Winter

Leslie Winter is Clifford’s godfather and a well-known squire (meaning major landowner) in the Midlands. Winter lives in a beautiful estate called Shipley; though Winter once encouraged the local colliers to spend time… read analysis of Squire Leslie Winter

General Tommy Dukes

Tommy Dukes is a respected military general and a member of Clifford’s philosophical, male-dominated social circles. Dukes is more thoughtful and less misogynistic than his friends, and he and Connie quickly bond. Dukes also… read analysis of General Tommy Dukes

Charles May

Charles May is an astronomer and part of Clifford’s academic friend group (alongside Hammond and Tommy Dukes). May is a bachelor, and he believes that sex is merely a necessity, like food—important for… read analysis of Charles May

Bertha Coutts

Bertha Coutts is Mellors’s estranged wife and the mother of his daughter, Connie Mellors. Mellors and Bertha grew up together. Though he was initially impressed by her worldliness and “sensuality,” the couple soon… read analysis of Bertha Coutts

Giovanni

Giovanni is the gondolier that Connie and Hilda hire during their time in Venice. Giovanni is depicted as sleazy and greedy, especially because he hopes that the sisters want to hire him as a male… read analysis of Giovanni

Daniele

Daniele is one of Giovanni’s friends in Venice. Though he seems introverted and lonely, he actually has a wife and two children, prompting Connie to reflect that “only people who are capable of real… read analysis of Daniele

Minor Characters

Hammond

Hammond is a prominent British writer and one of Clifford’s philosophical friends. Connie dislikes Hammond, in part because she finds him to be snobby and in part because he seems to understand women (including his own wife) as property to accrue.

Mrs. Flint

Mrs. Flint is one of Clifford Chatterley’s tenants, leasing a farm from him that she calls Marehay. Mrs. Flint envies Connie for her wealthy, sophisticated lifestyle, though Connie secretly envies Mrs. Flint in turn for her folksier, more freewheeling lifestyle and for her young baby daughter.

Connie Mellors

Connie Mellors is the eight-year-old daughter Oliver Mellors shares with Bertha Coutts. Constance Chatterley meets Connie in the woods, and though she acts warmly towards the little girl, she privately finds her manipulative and frustrating. Connie lives with her grandmother (Mellors’s mother) in the neighboring town of Stacks Gate.