Major Dennis Plunkett Timeline and Summary

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• Plunkett and his wife, Maud, sip drinks at a bar.
• A flashback to World War II shows us the catastrophe that gives Plunkett his head wound and robs him of two comrades, Scott and Tumbly.
• Plunkett has a flash of insight that helps him connect Helen (the woman), Helen (the island), and Helen of Troy (for more on these Helens, check out Helen's page elsewhere in this section).
• He prevents Maud from playing her Irish songs on the piano. She is hurt and has a cry in the bedroom.
• Plunkett takes his wife on a tour of the island. The volcano's "sulphurous breath" reminds him of the mass graves at Auschwitz. They see the abandoned sulfur mines of Bennett and Ward.
• Plunkett recalls the moment when Helen followed him into the garden to plead with him about the yellow dress.
• He decides to write a proper history of St. Lucia to give the island a legitimate identity and to "help" Helen.
• Plunkett also works on his family tree and hires someone to work up a visual of it; he has to emphasize that he has no son to the tree-maker.
• He throws himself headlong into his research project, neglecting Maud.
• We learn of Plunkett's unfulfilled desire to make a pilgrimage to major battle sites of the British Empire.
• On a research trip, he encounters a lizard and challenges it. He tells it that the greatest of naval battles was not fought for a lizard.
• He discovers the existence of Midshipman Plunkett. He imagines the young man's life on the island (and death) and decides to "adopt" him as a son. Not weird at all…
• He recalls catching Helen "trying on" Maud's serpentine bracelet. He allows it, but feels tempted by the bracelet snake to take advantage of Helen (but he doesn't).
• Plunkett digs through a garbage heap at the old French cemetery; he finds two French regimental buttons.
• He does not want to go on a cruise that Maud has been planning. Plunkett remembers how much he hated going back home the last time.
• Plunkett remembers nearly crashing into Hector's Comet while taking Maud to early morning Mass.
• Plunkett looks through the love letters Maud was reading when she died, then he lies down next to her body on the bed and grieves.
• He carries Maud's coffin out of the church and acknowledges Achille, Helen, and Philoctete.
• Plunkett goes to the bank and runs into the narrator. They have an awkward conversation and Plunkett invites him up to the house to see Maud's splendid quilt.
• He remembers the moment when Maud wanted to make love with him before marriage and how he refused—he wanted to be classier than that.
• Plunkett visits Ma Kilman to learn about Maud's afterlife; Maud appears to him and they drive away.
• He learns to live without his wife and becomes a calmer, milder man.
• Seven Seas mentions that Plunkett promised him a pig at Christmas, and says that Plunkett will heal in time.