Laminex and Mirrors

by

Cate Kennedy

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The Matron Character Analysis

– The matron is an unnamed woman who holds a supervisory position in the hospital where the narrator works. Though she never speaks in the narrative, her presence and her policies loom large in the hospital hallways. The matron is particularly adamant that the narrator does not provide Mr. Moreton with his coveted cigarettes, and is also angered by the narrator’s decision to “linger” in Mr. Moreton’s room to chat with him—so much so, in fact, that she enlists Marie to punish the narrator for it. At the end of the short story, the narrator imagines the matron waiting for her at the nurse’s station to punish (and likely fire) her for breaking Mr. Moreton out of his hospital room.

The Matron Quotes in Laminex and Mirrors

The Laminex and Mirrors quotes below are all either spoken by The Matron or refer to The Matron. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Joy and Drudgery Theme Icon
).
Laminex and Mirrors Quotes

“Matron's got to you, has she?”

“Sorry, but yes.”

“Dunno what's gunna kill me first,” he mutters. I give his breakfast tray an ineffectual rub. He hasn't touched his poached egg, and I can't blame him—it's sitting there like the eye of a giant squid. Mr. Moreton has an oxygen mask, but tells me he hates using it. “Feel like that thing's choking me,” he says. “Like in the war.”

Related Characters: Narrator (speaker), Mr. Moreton (speaker), The Matron
Page Number: 36-37
Explanation and Analysis:

Down in the kitchen the other cleaners will be pouring their cups of tea out of the urn now, Marie remarking coolly on my absence, and Matron will be waiting for us, I am certain, at the nurses' station, in the no-man's-land of the hospital's thermostatically cool interior, its sterilised world of hard surfaces, wiped clean and blameless. Someone else's jurisdiction now.

Related Characters: Narrator (speaker), Mr. Moreton, Dot, The Matron, Marie, Noeleen
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Matron Quotes in Laminex and Mirrors

The Laminex and Mirrors quotes below are all either spoken by The Matron or refer to The Matron. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Joy and Drudgery Theme Icon
).
Laminex and Mirrors Quotes

“Matron's got to you, has she?”

“Sorry, but yes.”

“Dunno what's gunna kill me first,” he mutters. I give his breakfast tray an ineffectual rub. He hasn't touched his poached egg, and I can't blame him—it's sitting there like the eye of a giant squid. Mr. Moreton has an oxygen mask, but tells me he hates using it. “Feel like that thing's choking me,” he says. “Like in the war.”

Related Characters: Narrator (speaker), Mr. Moreton (speaker), The Matron
Page Number: 36-37
Explanation and Analysis:

Down in the kitchen the other cleaners will be pouring their cups of tea out of the urn now, Marie remarking coolly on my absence, and Matron will be waiting for us, I am certain, at the nurses' station, in the no-man's-land of the hospital's thermostatically cool interior, its sterilised world of hard surfaces, wiped clean and blameless. Someone else's jurisdiction now.

Related Characters: Narrator (speaker), Mr. Moreton, Dot, The Matron, Marie, Noeleen
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis: