Flag Symbol Analysis

The flag of Apple Island, which is patched together from several difference pieces of fabric, represents how the island itself is a patchwork community, made up of disparate parts but which is ultimately more resilient due to its diversity. The most notable scene with a flag is the great flood, where Patience holds the flag over her head as the waters rise. Although Patience herself submerges, the flag never goes underwater, symbolizing how the community is stronger than any individual member and how even a force as powerful as the flood can’t overcome it.

The patchwork flag of Apple Island contrasts with the American flag that the white Matthew Diamond raises in his yard over on the mainland. Although Matthew Diamond believes he’s doing his patriotic duty by trying to “improve” the residents of Apple Island through education, he soon learns that the government would rather remove all trace of Apple Island rather than try to understand its residents. The United States, which itself began as a patchwork group of states, has now become too monolithic to accommodate the unusual lifestyle of the Apple Islanders. And so, although eugenics-inspired government action threatens to erase Apple Island’s way of life, the final image in the novel of Zachary Hand still holding a patchwork flag up suggests that no matter what happens, some part of Apple Island’s spirit will endure.