Matty is the first major character in Rent Boy’s circle of friends to die during the timeline of the novel. He doesn’t realize that he has HIV, and he gets a serious brain infection from the feces of a kitten he spontaneously adopts. Matty’s seemingly random death illustrates how precarious life is in Leith and how death often comes prematurely to the novel’s young characters.
Matty Quotes in Trainspotting
The Trainspotting quotes below are all either spoken by Matty or refer to Matty . 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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Get the entire Trainspotting LitChart as a printable PDF.
Matty Character Timeline in Trainspotting
The timeline below shows where the character Matty appears in Trainspotting. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Kicking
...Without Saying. Rent Boy is hanging out with some friends, including Sick Boy, Spud, and Matty, when they hear a loud noise. Lesley comes into the room screaming about how Dawn...
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Spud and Matty panic because they can’t call the police—the place is full of drugs. Sick Boy tries...
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Matty changes his mind and says Lesley isn’t a bad parent and heroin didn’t have anything...
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Kicking Again
...where Rent Boy is staying in a friend’s apartment for a few weeks. Begbie tells Matty that he plans on dumping June when he gets back from London because he doesn’t...
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Begbie and Matty leave the pub, looking like they’re ready to pick a fight with some strangers. Sick...
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...tells them to either have sex already or to come help them find Begbie and Matty.
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Home
A Present. Rent Boy stays with his friend Gav for Matty’s funeral. Rent Boy doesn’t know the full story of what happened to Matty, but Gav...
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Gav continues the story, telling Rent Boy how Matty got a brain hemorrhage then had a stroke at age 25. After the stroke, he...
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Memories of Matty. Begbie, Rent Boy, Spud, Alison, and others have all gathered for Matty’s funeral. At a...
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Several people at the funeral recall their memories of Matty. Spud remembers how when Matty was stoned, he used to watch Australian soap operas. Alison...
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...distract Begbie to diffuse the situation, reminiscing about a trip they went on together with Matty. This pacifies Begbie at first, but then he suddenly says that Sick Boy should have...
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At the pub, Spud tries to defend Sick Boy for missing Matty’s funeral, saying Sick Boy is in France, and so it would’ve been a long trip...
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