Matthew Diamond Character Analysis

So Theophilus poked around the shack and brooded over the pile of sleeping children like a mother robin, wearing the dress and shopkeeper’s apron, and whenever any islander passed by he paused at his aimless chores or rose from the chair outside the door and came to the edge of the dirt yard and wrung his hands in an old red rag he took from the apron’s front pocket, nodded at the passerby and said, What lack ye, Mr. Diamond? What lack ye, Eha Honey? To the children he asked, What lack ye, my little salted cods? What lack ye, my little oysters?

Candace Lark never liked housekeeping and was no good at it anyway. A particular squalor surrounded the Larks’ shack when she had been in charge of domestic order. Much of that had been due to the children, who arrived one after another for eight years, counting the five that didn’t live. But even considering mothering and scant means and the necessity of staying home while Theophilus fished, Candace lacked instinct for tending her kids and shack.

MATTHEW DIAMOND PUNCTUALLY arrived at his summer home in Foxden, visible right across the channel, on the evening of each June 20th and signaled his coming to the islanders by raising a U.S. flag up a pole in his yard the next morning at dawn.

Bernard Richardson happened to be in the store one day and saw the postcards made from his photographs. He demanded Art Dunlop remove them.

Those are my pictures, they’re portraits of those people—and official documents, he said. They’re not for you to turn into a bunch of dirty jokes.

Art Dunlop stood behind the sales counter adding figures on a pad. He looked up and said, I guess you’re free to buy the lot if you care to. At retail.

Well, you don’t have my permission to—

Otherwise, you’re just about trespassing if you say anything more about it.

THE MORNING AFTER the feast, Ethan woke with bleary eyes and a slight headache from the beer. He took the small circle of mirror that had been his mother’s from its shelf near his father’s bed and sat on the rocks on the west side of the island and drew four self-portraits.

He was hot, probably sunburned, again, on his arms and nose and face and his neck, too. The hot sweet hay perfume mingled with the cigarette smoke and he wanted to sit down but there was no natural place to do so in the middle of the field.

Matthew answered, Yes, certainly, a well would do wonders, new, sounder cabins would help with the cold, woodstoves, too. I know two men here who are marvelous carpenters, and I am half decent myself. A bridge would help the islanders feel more connected to the town, and help people on the main come here with their washing or fishing lines that need mending. They could have horses and wagons, even, perhaps. They could even attend a proper church. Well, I, perhaps not right in town, then. There’s a Negro meeting house—church—the—it’s called the Abyssinian Meeting House—in Portland—they could get to more easily.

You have to leave the island.

So Theophilus poked around the shack and brooded over the pile of sleeping children like a mother robin, wearing the dress and shopkeeper’s apron, and whenever any islander passed by he paused at his aimless chores or rose from the chair outside the door and came to the edge of the dirt yard and wrung his hands in an old red rag he took from the apron’s front pocket, nodded at the passerby and said, What lack ye, Mr. Diamond? What lack ye, Eha Honey? To the children he asked, What lack ye, my little salted cods? What lack ye, my little oysters?

Candace Lark never liked housekeeping and was no good at it anyway. A particular squalor surrounded the Larks’ shack when she had been in charge of domestic order. Much of that had been due to the children, who arrived one after another for eight years, counting the five that didn’t live. But even considering mothering and scant means and the necessity of staying home while Theophilus fished, Candace lacked instinct for tending her kids and shack.

MATTHEW DIAMOND PUNCTUALLY arrived at his summer home in Foxden, visible right across the channel, on the evening of each June 20th and signaled his coming to the islanders by raising a U.S. flag up a pole in his yard the next morning at dawn.

Bernard Richardson happened to be in the store one day and saw the postcards made from his photographs. He demanded Art Dunlop remove them.

Those are my pictures, they’re portraits of those people—and official documents, he said. They’re not for you to turn into a bunch of dirty jokes.

Art Dunlop stood behind the sales counter adding figures on a pad. He looked up and said, I guess you’re free to buy the lot if you care to. At retail.

Well, you don’t have my permission to—

Otherwise, you’re just about trespassing if you say anything more about it.

THE MORNING AFTER the feast, Ethan woke with bleary eyes and a slight headache from the beer. He took the small circle of mirror that had been his mother’s from its shelf near his father’s bed and sat on the rocks on the west side of the island and drew four self-portraits.

He was hot, probably sunburned, again, on his arms and nose and face and his neck, too. The hot sweet hay perfume mingled with the cigarette smoke and he wanted to sit down but there was no natural place to do so in the middle of the field.

Matthew answered, Yes, certainly, a well would do wonders, new, sounder cabins would help with the cold, woodstoves, too. I know two men here who are marvelous carpenters, and I am half decent myself. A bridge would help the islanders feel more connected to the town, and help people on the main come here with their washing or fishing lines that need mending. They could have horses and wagons, even, perhaps. They could even attend a proper church. Well, I, perhaps not right in town, then. There’s a Negro meeting house—church—the—it’s called the Abyssinian Meeting House—in Portland—they could get to more easily.

You have to leave the island.