But is it Really?
The complex portrait of Walker has him at one point riding a horse around the island and enjoying the natural beauty it provides almost like an aesthete sitting for hours in a museum staring a favorite painting. The mere act of enjoying the visual sumptuousness of the vividly green bread-fruit trees is enough to forth a pronouncement that will prove tragically ironic in light of subsequent events:
"By George, it's like the garden of Eden."
Walker
While Mackintosh creates for himself a personal enemy in Walker, the narrative technique allows Walker to become more fleshed out, but it is in that fleshing out that he is also ironically undermined. Walker is eventually revealed to be profoundly contradictory: he is a benevolent despot and beloved tyrant.
Narrative Perspective
Were the story narrated in the first-person solely from the perspective of the title character, the character of Walker would almost certainly be far more villainous if not entirely villainous. The limited omniscience afforded by a third person point-of-view that is mostly seen through the eyes of Mackintosh creates the space necessary for ironic distancing. This narrative distancing allows even Mackintosh to ultimately arrive at an understanding of Walker that is ambiguous at best. The irony here is stripped of narrative analysis and judged purely by action, Walker is absolutely a villainous character.
Sharks
The story begins with the revelation that Mackintosh has a fear of sharks. The story ends with the image of a shark frenzy feasting upon his remains. Symbolism also applies here as Walker is a shark that Mackintosh ironically recognizes but does not fear.
Mackintosh
The end of Mackintosh becomes the central irony of the story. His fear of sharks is introduced as resulting from a keenly developed self-awareness of his own limitations: “he could not go out of his depth.” In fact, it is precisely because he continued to challenge his own limitations by insisting on going beyond his depth in dealing with in Walker a man whose complexity befuddles his limited life experience that the tragic ending march inexorably toward completion.
