Chances Are . . .

The Chilmark house on Martha’s Vineyard is a powerful symbol of the past’s persistent influence on the present, and it frequently functions as a physical anchor for the novel’s focus on The Unknowable Past and the Fallibility of Memory. This idyllic setting also holds different meanings for the various characters over time. For Lincoln’s mother, the house embodies her lost childhood innocence, and she remembers it as a place where “for three long months she had her mother’s full attention” and enjoyed a daily lifestyle “full of salt air and clean-smelling sheets” (12). Her refusal to sell the house despite Dub-Yay’s insistence stands as her one act of defiance, and by preserving the house, she safeguards the central core of her otherwise suppressed identity, clinging to a tangible piece of who she was before she shackled herself to his petty dominion.

For Lincoln, Teddy, and Mickey, the house is the site of their final weekend of youthful fellowship and the origin point of the mystery surrounding Jacy’s disappearance. When they reunite there 44 years later, the setting forces them to confront their divergent memories of the past. Notably, the realtor’s practical assessment that many buyers would consider the property to be a “teardown” (32) functions metaphorically, for just as the physical structure is weathered, the men’s recollections of the past are also unstable and in need of demolition and reconstruction before they can finally behold the truth.