The Stone Diaries

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Character Analysis

Themes

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Birth, 1905”

The story begins with the narrator, Daisy, recounting her birth in 1905. Her mother, Mercy, a 30-year-old overweight woman, and her father, Cuyler Goodwill, a "pick and nibble fellow,” live in Tyndall, Manitoba, Canada (1). Mercy was born at the Stonewall Orphans Home in 1875 and given the surname “Stone” as was the practice for orphans whose lineage was unknown. Daisy’s parents met when a door sill of the orphanage needed repair, and Cuyler, a mason, was called to fix it. He fell in love with Mercy and courted her, and they married in 1903.

On the day of Daisy’s birth, Mercy is making a Malvern pie for supper when she begins feeling sick, like "a shift in the floor of her chest, rising at first, and then an abrupt drop, a squeezing like an accordion held sideways" (4). She often feels sick but does not feel comfortable talking to her doctor, Dr. Spears, or even to her husband about what she believes is indigestion and/or "women’s trouble." Her relationship with food is both the cause and solution to her health problems, as she often eats buttered bread to help her feel better. She also feels that her "inability to feel love has poisoned her" as she does not feel pleasure when her husband makes love to her (7); she copes with food. She starts to feel worse standing there in the kitchen but cannot call out to her neighbor, Mrs. Flett, as she collapses.

Mrs. Clarentine Flett is an older woman who considers herself and Mercy “a pair of Christian sisters uniquely joined” by what Mrs. Flett imagines is loneliness (18). Clarentine has three sons: Barker, who is studying in Winnipeg, and Simon and Andrew, who work at the stonecutting quarry with her husband, Magnus. Magnus immigrated to Canada at age 19 from Scotland. Mrs. Flett envies the way Cuyler professes his love for Mercy, while Magnus is more stoic and reticent.

On the day of Daisy’s birth, Abram Gozhde Skutari, a peddler known as “the old Jew,” approaches Mrs. Flett, who is hanging up her clothes to dry outside, and in broken English tells her that Mercy is sick. Dr. Spears is also called, and Cuyler arrives home from work, but it is too late. Mercy has died from eclampsia after giving birth to Daisy in her kitchen.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Childhood, 1916”

It is now 1916, and we learn more about Barker Flett, who is 33 and cares for his mother, Clarentine, and 11-year-old “niece” Daisy while teaching botany at Wesley College in Winnipeg. Clarentine Flett has left Magnus because she claims “he withheld the money (two dollars and fifty cents) she required in order to consult with Dr. Spears about an abscessed tooth” (37). Cuyler was grief-stricken after the death of Mercy, so he allowed Mrs. Flett to take Daisy with her to Winnipeg. Mrs. Flett has been selling plants to make a living. Barker is unmarried but likes to sleep with prostitutes to fill the loneliness that is not fulfilled by his obsession with a particular flower called the “lady-slipper,” which is vaguely sexual. He was forced to give up his studies of the flower and settle on teaching introductory botany courses in 1905 to provide for his mother and Daisy, a sacrifice he resents. Through letters, we learn that Cuyler sends money to Barker to help with the cost of caring for Daisy. Barker still struggles with money, so he writes his father for help, which Magnus refuses because he is angry at Clarentine for leaving.

Cuyler has become spiritual after his wife’s death. Three months after Mercy’s death, he sees a rainbow as he is visiting her grave. He comes to believe that the rainbow was God and that it was “Directed at him, for him” (57). He builds a stone tower on Mercy’s grave as a tribute to her and God. He carves and engraves each stone with various designs and words. The tower takes him years to build, but eventually it is finished and earns him some fame and tourist visits. He also feels betrayed that Mercy did not tell him of her pregnancy.

Back in 1916, Daisy becomes sick with the measles. She is kept in bed in a darkened room and allowed no visitors except Clarentine, who nurses her. With nothing to do except sleep and lie in bed, Daisy reflects on her short life so far and acknowledges, “Something was missing” (75), deciding that, “What she lacked was the kernel of authenticity, that precious interior ore that everyone around her seemed to possess” (75). She believes everyone is sure of themselves and of their place in the world, but she is not; she is filled with young anxiety and awareness.

When Daisy is sick, Barker becomes sexually attracted to her and feels ashamed of his feelings. Letters between Cuyler and Barker reveal that Clarentine dies after being struck by a cyclist. Not knowing what to do with Daisy now that his mother is gone, Barker writes to Cuyler, who has taken a job in Indiana and has decided to take Daisy with him. Daisy is excited about her changing future.

Chapter 3 Summary: “Marriage, 1927”

Chapter 3 jumps to 1927, when Daisy, 22, is set to marry Harold A. Hoad. Daisy’s father is doing well in the stonecutting business; he is more confident and refined and is well-known for his powerful public speeches and for the building of the tower back in Manitoba. This power of speech is seen in flashbacks to his trip with young Daisy to Indiana, where they were like strangers to each other and he felt the need to fill the nervous silence with stories.

We also learn more about Magnus Flett, who is now 65 and retired, heading back to his homeland in the Orkney Islands in Scotland. After Clarentine left him with a simple goodbye note, he was confused and angry because he thought he had provided enough for her to be happy. He reads the romance novels she left behind and displays a more romantic side, imagining himself declaring his love to his former wife and begging her to come home.

Before Daisy's wedding, Mrs. Hoad, Harold's mother, invites Daisy for lunch and instructs her on how to behave as her son's wife: "From the moment the marriage vows are exchanged at the altar, a woman's husband becomes her sacred trust" (104). Mrs. Hoad believes Daisy must cater to Harold’s needs. Later we meet Daisy's childhood friends, Elfreda Hoyt, who goes by "Fraidy,” and Labina Anthony, who goes by "Beans." As they are trying on wedding dresses, they discuss Daisy's imminent wedding, and they speculate about the sexual intimacy she must now share with her husband.

Daisy's fiancé’s family is wealthy and owns the masonry business for which Cuyler now works. Harold's father committed suicide in the family basement when Harold was seven because, according to Mrs. Hoad, he had received a diagnosis that he would soon become totally blind and did not want to be burden to his family. Since his father's death, Harold has had a morbid curiosity that he supplements with alcohol. His wedding to Daisy in 1927 is a drunken blur.

Now 43, Barker Flett is still a bachelor and has become Director of Agricultural Research for the government. When he receives news about Daisy’s marriage, he is reminded and haunted by the "perverse, momentary desire" he had for Daisy while she was sick with the measles (111). As a wedding gift, he sends her $10,000 from the sale of his mother's florist business.

On their honeymoon in Paris, Harold is drunkenly throwing coins from the window sill of their hotel room while Daisy lies down. He then falls to his death. Daisy hears his fall, and she lies "flat on the bed for a least a minute" before getting up to see what has happened (120).

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

In the first three chapters, in addition to meeting the main characters, we are also introduced to the style of the narrative. The novel is reworking the idea of an autobiography, as Daisy knows and remembers things she should not be able to include in a traditional autobiography. For example, she recounts in extreme detail her own birth and her mother’s life up to her death in 1905. She never met her mother, yet Daisy presumes to know her every thought and idiosyncrasy: how she eats, how she struggled in her last moments, the intimate details of her sex life. She also jumps around from present to past to future verb tense. As a narrator and writer, Daisy is filling in the blanks, taking authorial liberties, and providing fictionalized perspectives of her own real life. She acknowledges, “Other accounts are required, other perspectives, but even so our most important ceremonies—birth, love, and death—are secured by whoever and whatever is available” (37). Real, firsthand accounts of these events are preferable, but sometimes the only things “available” are one’s own inferences and imagination.

This rewriting of history is especially visible in Mrs. Hoad’s account of how and why her husband, Harold’s father, killed himself. She tells her sons that he shot himself in the family basement because he wanted to spare his family the burden of caring for a soon-to-be completely blind man. She paints him as a noble man making the ultimate sacrifice for his family, yet Harold questions whether this account of his father is true. He hears “rumblings about his father’s financial irregularities and about a woman ‘friend’” (109), gossip that may or may not be true but that paints his father in a completely different light than Mrs. Hoad would like. Because of the mystery behind the suicide, Harold becomes a “morbid creature” obsessed with the details of his father’s death, which is ironic since Harold himself dies tragically. He believes this obsession is “unmanly,” proving that even in matters of death, pervasive gender stereotypes shape one’s understanding of the rewriting of family narratives.