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The Hunger Birds
The opal miner is a South African man who made his fortune mining opals in Australia. He comes to England and rents the narrator’s bedroom; his reason for coming to England is never entirely clear. The narrator finds the opal miner callous—though the man does gift the narrator and his sister raw opals—as the opal miner’s taxi accidentally hits and kills the narrator’s kitten, Fluffy. He immediately replaces Fluffy with a cantankerous tomcat named Monster, who is in no way a replacement for the narrator’s affectionate kitten. Things go from bad to worse when the opal miner steals the family’s car and commits suicide in it after gambling away all his and his friends’ money. It’s implied that the opal miner is connected to the supernatural parallel universe in the novel, as his suicide somehow creates the opportunity for the monster Ursula to enter the mortal world.
The Opal Miner Quotes in The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The The Ocean at the End of the Lane quotes below are all either spoken by The Opal Miner or refer to The Opal Miner. 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:
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Chapter 1 Quotes
I missed Fluffy. I knew you could not simply replace something alive, but I dared not grumble to my parents about it. They would have been baffled at my upset: after all, if my kitten had been killed, it had also been replaced. The damage had been made up.
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After the narrator tells the horrific story of the opal miner running over his beloved kitten, Fluffy, and replacing Fluffy with a mean tomcat named Monster, he insists that he was the only one who even thought to grieve for his deceased pet. The narrator’s parents read as wildly disaffected and uncaring here—they seem not to care at all that their son lost the being who was his only friend. His parents instead see what happened as a basic transaction, and one that doesn’t acknowledge the fact that this is a conversation about living beings, not inanimate objects. The fact Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque
Chapter 12 Quotes
“They need to finish this up. It’s what they do: they’re the carrion kind, the vultures of the void. Their job. Clean up the last remnants of the mess. Nice and neat. Pull you from the world and it will be as if you never existed. Just go with it. It won’t hurt.”
I stared at him. Adults only ever said that when it, whatever it happened to be, was going to hurt so much.
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While the narrator waits for Lettie in a supernatural protective area called a “fairy ring,” the hunger birds—who want to eat the narrator’s heart but cannot enter the fairy ring—send apparitions to tempt the narrator out, the first of which is an apparition of the opal miner. Notably, the opal miner tries to impress upon the narrator that the narrator is helpless and has no choice in the matter. Stepping out and allowing the hunger birds to eat him will simply mean that he’s doing what he’s supposed to do—and even if he resists for a while, he can’t resist Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis.
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The Opal Miner Character Timeline in The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The timeline below shows where the character The Opal Miner appears in The Ocean at the End of the Lane. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...mourn for, and bury Fluffy by himself at the very bottom of the garden. The opal miner motions to the box and says he always pays his debts, so the narrator opens...
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...just replace living things, he knows his parents wouldn’t understand—as far as they’re concerned, the opal miner made up the damage. Presently, as the narrator recalls everything while sitting next to the...
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Chapter 2
...narrator’s bedroom to characters who, to the narrator, all seem suspicious and like interlopers. The opal miner is the current renter. He’s South African, though he mined opals in Australia. He gives...
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The “it” in the backseat looks like the opal miner but, like the waxworks, it isn’t convincing. It’s dressed in a suit with a ruffled...
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...the girl that there’s a dead man in the car. The girl explains that the opal miner knew that no one would find him here, and she offers the narrator fresh milk...
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...mugs—the doctor will come too. She then sighs that they missed the note in the opal miner ’s breast pocket. When Lettie asks what it says, the woman tells Lettie to read...
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...ask any of them. Lettie announces that she’s nudged an officer to look in the opal miner ’s breast pocket. Mrs. Hempstock suggests that Lettie take the narrator to the pond. Lettie...
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Chapter 3
...asleep,” which is bad. She also confirms that this has something to do with the opal miner and then invites the narrator to have breakfast. As they walk, Lettie tells the narrator...
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...the narrator asks why he found a shilling in his throat, Lettie says that the opal miner just wanted people to have money—but it’s complicated. His death started something, and now, something...
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Chapter 8
...this is a lie: he wants to go home, but to his home before the opal miner showed up.
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Chapter 12
...and everything is still and silent as the sun sets. Out of the darkness, the opal miner walks to the narrator. He looks like a waxwork, and his face is still bright...
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Chapter 14
...cool and gusty. They walk up the lane until they reach the spot where the opal miner died. The narrator suggests they wake up Old Mrs. Hempstock, but Lettie explains that her...
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Chapter 15
...befriends his father. The narrator never goes down the lane and only thinks of the opal miner as the man who gave him a rough opal. Monster hangs around, though he never...
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