Mister Mitchell is the camel’s current owner in “The Bones.” The camel suspects that the man is mad, as Mister Mitchell rides him like “a fancy horse” and inexplicably digs up bones from an Aboriginal person’s gravesite. The bones, Henry Lawson later explains, are supposedly going to protect Mister Mitchell from the ghosts of Aboriginal people whom Mitchell’s father murdered years ago, during the Hospital Creek Massacre. Mister Mitchell is asleep with the bones for much of the story, but he wakes up in the story’s final pages and shoots the massive goanna that began stalking him and the camel after Mitchell dug up the bones. But though Mitchell manages to kill the goanna, he also accidentally shoots the camel.
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Mister Mitchell Character Timeline in Only the Animals
The timeline below shows where the character Mister Mitchell appears in Only the Animals. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Bones: Soul of Camel (Died 1892, Australia)
...type of lizard) that’s been following the camel’s group for days. The camel’s owner, Mister Mitchell, is asleep, with the queen’s bones next to him. But the poet that joined them...
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Lawson says that he told Mitchell to put the bones back, but Mitchell is stubborn and has been ever since he...
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...way since his handler, Zeriph, died years ago. The camel thinks back to where Mister Mitchell last filled the waterbags, in Hungerford. It’s the strangest place he’s seen since coming to...
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Lawson continues to ramble. He says he grew up in Pipeclay, where his and Mitchell’s fathers were some of the last men to work in the goldfields. Most of the...
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...hour of the séance had been boring, but then, a spirit asked to speak to Mitchell’s father, who was there inquire about where he could find gold. Through the medium, the...
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The camel tries to remember if Mitchell dug up the queen’s bones near a creek. It was hard for the camel to...
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...knows that Lawson isn’t here just to drink rum or renew his childhood friendship with Mitchell. Rather, Lawson’s companions are perfect fodder for a writer: the son of a rich man,...
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...their journey. Though camels aren’t unusual in Australia (they’re being used to build a railroad), Mitchell stood out and attracted attention for riding a camel like “a fancy horse.” The first...
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...kill kangaroos, drag off sheep, and eat sleeping men’s eyes. The camel looks to Mister Mitchell, who is sleeping with the bones. He’s curled up, just like the queen’s bones had...
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...the morning, he’s going to run away. He can’t understand why men like Lawson and Mitchell do such terrible things. The camel doesn’t think he’s blameless, but he can’t be blamed...
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As Lawson rambles on, Mitchell suddenly leaps to his feet and shouts at the goanna. He says that his father...
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