54 pages • 1 hour read
Helen OyeyemiMr. Fox
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Training at Madame De Silentio’s”
Madame de Silentio runs a boarding school for teenage boys, teaching them how to be good husbands. The narrator reflects that he was upset to be sent to Madame de Silentio’s, but he now realizes that the education was valuable. Madame de Silentio condenses the boys’ academics, focusing on important topics like handshakes, mowing, and avoiding impotence. She teaches them to consider what would make “her” (their future wives) happy. The boys are legally obligated to stay in school until they are 18.
The narrator recently became “Head Prefect” and must write a chapter for the handbook. He decides to write about a cautionary tale that happened at the Academy. There were two boys, Charles Wolfe and Charlie Wulf, who became friends despite their differences. Charlie was a “pretty boy” who experienced a drug addiction before his enrollment. He began using addictive substances when he was seven. His parents sent him to Madame de Silentio’s as a last resort. Charles was “unattractive” and the son of an Indian government official. He liked to steal blue items, and he wrote strange, sometimes violent things in his English diary. He was closely watched and suspected of misbehavior that the school couldn’t prove.
The boys started visiting the lake on campus, which they were forbidden from swimming in. Charlie fell into the lake, writing about it in his diary. Charles pulled him out of the water, but in the process, they saw an alive, masked man tied up under the water—Reynardine. The boys stopped talking about the lake in their diaries for seven days. The day after, they wrote about a conversation they had with Reynardine. Madame de Silentio ignored the teachers’ warnings to keep watch on the boys.
Charlie and Charles bribed three other students to create a distraction, and they freed Reynardine from the lake. The next day, Madame de Silentio realized Reynardine had escaped because he started killing women. Reynardine’s murder spree inspired others to start murdering.
Charles and Charlie stayed at the Academy, though their lives were miserable. They graduated, and Charles was sold to a woman, Helene. Embarrassed by Charles’s appearance, she gave him a mask to wear. Charlie was sold to Laurel, a teacher. Charlie used his love-related education, but Laurel found it insincere, and she became worried Charlie would cheat on her. She also gave her husband a mask to wear. Reynardine did not come to help, and Charlie and Charles no longer talked, perhaps, the narrator hypothesizes, because they fell in love. The narrator says it has been interesting learning about his father’s time at the Academy.
Mr. Fox and Mrs. Fox host a dinner party. They go upstairs to argue. Mary Foxe watches them. Daphne refuses to wear her wedding ring. Mr. Fox picks her up and bullies her until she agrees to put it on. He sets her down and talks to the caterer while she gets the ring and puts it on. Daphne takes off the ring and splashes cool water on herself. Mary wants to speak to Daphne but leaves the room and finds Mr. Fox, who says he is not going to change. He is working on a new story about a man who hits women with his car at night as stress relief. Mary tells Mr. Fox to stop, saying it is “obscene” to justify his literary violence toward women. Mr. Fox shrugs off the comment, saying he’s trying to make sense of the world they live in. He asks if Mary wants to stop playing, but the guests arrive, including Greta and Pizarsky. Pizarsky often looks at Daphne. The Foxes pretend they are happy, and Mary thinks they look like they’re having fun.
Chapter 6 Summary: “What Happens Next”
Mary Foxe meets a psychiatrist, S.J. Fox, on a plane after a woman sitting next to her, Yelena, dies. They get off the plane together. S.J. tells her about his recent paper on fugue states, and he gives her his card as they part.
Mary decides not to call S.J., assuming he is married, but she changes her mind after receiving a letter from her terminally ill father, Roger. She remembers her father’s unsettling behavior in her childhood. While she was at boarding school, her father murdered her mother after the mother left him for another man. Afterward, Mary changed her name from Miel Shaw, taking her mother’s maiden name of Foxe, and drank cough syrup to help her sleep.
Mary, a model, decides not to attend a charity ball she was invited to. Instead, she calls her cousin and adoptive brother, Jonas, the son of her Aunt Molly and Uncle Tom, who raised her after her father murdered her mother. She tells him about Yelena and avoids mentioning the letter from her father.
The next day, Mary researches S.J. and learns his wife, Daphne, is deceased. She confirms with lawyers that her father is ill, and everyone in the family tells Mary to visit her father in prison before he dies. She imagines her mother would warn her not to go. He used to force Mary to memorize news articles about male relatives murdering young girls, and he would quiz her on the details.
S.J. messages Mary about how she didn’t call him. She calls and agrees to meet him the following week. S.J. apologizes about Mary’s mother, and she apologizes about S.J.’s wife.
Mary stops talking to her family and, while at a party, realizes why Daphne looks familiar. Years ago, at a party, Mary found a woman dead in a bathroom stall. Suddenly, she is at dinner with S.J. They go to his hotel room after, where Mary asks about Daphne’s mental health and her suicide. They sleep together, and S.J. is gone when Mary wakes.
She doesn’t remember what happened, but Mary ends up someplace familiar without her purse or phone. She runs into Jonas, who buys her food, takes her home, and cancels her stolen credit cards. The family couldn’t find Mary for three days. Roger died, and they are waiting to cremate him until Mary sees him. She goes with Jonas to see Roger’s body.
Mary reflects on how she is the only survivor of her immediate family. Mary calls S.J. and asks if he will come get her, but she changes her mind and decides to ride a long train to get to his house. On the way, she calls her agent to say she needs some time off and Jonas to tell him where she is going.
She gets to Brier Moss, and S.J. lets her in. He takes her to his study, which is lined to the ceiling with medical texts and contains only one chair. There are three small pieces of cake on the desk, each with a bite taken out. S.J. leaves the study and then tells her to come meet him on the roof. He gives her a psychotropic nutmeg drink, which Mary spits out, and he cries while saying he never hurt Daphne. He says no one called to check on him after Daphne died, and Mary says she would have called.
S.J. takes Mary to a decorated bedroom with a four-poster bed and a vase with foxglove flowers. She assumes it was Daphne’s. They sleep together, and it hurts; Mary assumes S.J. will stop when he notices she is not enjoying it, but he doesn’t. Afterward, he leaves. Mary masturbates, and the door opens. She shuts it, and it opens again. Eventually, she sits on the floor next to the door, holding it shut before giving up and letting it open.
Mary wakes in the morning and goes into the study. The room is empty, but the cakes are still there. She feeds them to the birds. She and S.J. spend the day walking around town, and in the evening, he works. She goes to the bedroom, where she finds a note from Daphne about drinking bleach and a reference to “L 11: 24-26.” She finds the Bible passage, which is about returning to a house after death. Disquieted, Mary goes to the study and lies at S.J.’s feet.
Mary prepares to throw a dinner party at S.J.’s house. After shopping for supplies, Mary returns and finds several dead finches. She starts cooking. Mary breathes the stove fumes, and Daphne appears, calling her “an idiot.” Daphne says the cake was laced with pharmaceuticals, which killed the birds. Daphne says S.J. is a good man who will love and care for Mary if she lets him. Daphne asks Mary to convince S.J. that her death is not his fault.
Mary doesn’t visit Mr. Fox for weeks while he repairs his relationship with Daphne. They sleep together, and Daphne uses Lysol to prevent pregnancy afterward. They visit a lighthouse Mr. Fox inherited. He sees Mary walking in the water, and he goes to talk to her. Mr. Fox says he thinks that he and Mary have been “trying to fall in love” (206), but Mary disagrees. She tells him to be good to his wife so that she can leave him, but he doesn’t want her to leave. He wants Mary to be real so they can run away together. Mary says she wants to be real rather than at the mercy of Mr. Fox’s whims. Daphne calls out for Mr. Fox, and Mary disappears.
Chapters 5-6 Analysis
Oyeyemi continues to subvert traditional gender roles while deepening the complexity of her narrative structure. Through irony, recurring symbols, and the interplay between fiction and reality, these chapters explore the evolving relationships between Mr. Fox, Mary Foxe, and Daphne. The novel challenges stereotypes and introduces characters like Mr. Pizarsky, whose presence disrupts Mr. Fox’s marriage, allowing Oyeyemi to contrast Mr. Fox’s relationships with the women in his life.
Chapter 5 introduces a satirical twist on how society conditions women to be ideal wives, turning the tables by subjecting boys to the same social conditioning. Madame de Silentio’s boarding school teaches boys “Strong Handshakes, Silence, Rudimentary Car Mechanics, Sport and Nutrition Against Impotence” (119). The curriculum mirrors the traditional, rigid gender expectations society often imposes on women, who are trained to become “good” wives and mothers. By flipping the roles, Oyeyemi exposes the absurdity of perpetuating sexist stereotypes, showing how equally preposterous it would be to mold men into similarly reductive roles. The irony highlights how deeply ingrained societal expectations are and the absurd lengths people go to enforce them, critiquing both male and female conditioning in a patriarchal system.
The theme of Subverting Traditional Gender Roles and the “Damsel in Distress” Trope extends to Mr. Fox’s marriage to Daphne and his relationship with Mary. Mr. Fox’s fear of losing Daphne intensifies, especially after the reappearance of Mr. Pizarsky, a subtle yet significant character. Mr. Pizarsky, a rival of Mr. Fox, represents both a threat and a mirror to Mr. Fox’s insecurities. His lingering gaze on Daphne is described as “hesitant. Almost meek” (141), subverting the traditional idea of the aggressive male rival. Mr. Pizarsky’s quiet demeanor contrasts with Mr. Fox’s internal turmoil, emphasizing how power dynamics in relationships are rarely straightforward. Pizarsky’s influence on Mr. Fox’s marriage further complicates the relationships at play, as Mr. Fox becomes increasingly anxious about his marriage to Daphne while simultaneously struggling with his connection to Mary.
The structure of the novel becomes more interconnected in these chapters, with recurring characters and symbols like Reynardine, Pizarsky, and foxglove flowers. Mr. Fox often uses the names of people he knows in his stories, further blurring the lines between reality and fiction and contributing to The Relationship Between Authors and Their Characters. The reappearance of Mr. Pizarsky takes on a more significant role. Similarly, the mention of foxglove flowers in Chapter 6—introduced in Chapter 3 with their dual symbolism of beauty and danger—reflects the ongoing tension in Mr. Fox’s relationships. Just as foxgloves can be both poisonous and medicinal, Mr. Fox’s relationships carry both the potential for emotional healing and destruction. The foxgloves also underscore the dangerous allure of these relationships, reinforcing the idea that love and desire come with risk and consequence.
Mr. Fox’s relationships with Daphne and Mary are central to these chapters, and Oyeyemi uses their contrast to highlight the power dynamics at play. Control and manipulation mark Mr. Fox’s marriage to Daphne, as seen in Chapter 5 when Mr. Fox physically forces Daphne to wear her wedding ring during an argument. His relationship with Mary, on the other hand, is more emotionally fraught. When Mr. Fox reflects, “My heart was doing that jerking thing it did when I’d thought Daphne might leave me, but worse. Much, much worse. Almost unbearable” (207), it reveals his deep attachment to Mary. The irony lies in the fact that, despite his deep attachment to Mary, his mind and loyalty turn back to Daphne when she calls out to him, and Mary disappears. This demonstrates how Mr. Fox’s internal conflict—his desire for both women—is ultimately tied to his inability to fully commit to either. He doesn’t want to lose Mary, as his intense emotional reaction suggests, but his thoughts reflexively shift to Daphne when she needs him. This dynamic underscores the deeper issues at play: Mr. Fox’s desire for control shapes his relationships with both women.
Mary occupies a paradoxical space in Mr. Fox’s life. She encourages him to be a better husband to Daphne, urging him to stop relying on her as an escape. This encouragement shows Mary’s awareness of her role in Mr. Fox’s imagination—she recognizes that for him to improve as a husband, he must let her go. Yet, at the same time, Mary longs to be real and independent. Her desire for autonomy contrasts sharply with the fleeting nature of her existence, which is at the mercy of Mr. Fox’s attention. Mary’s struggle for independence continues to develop the theme of Subverting Traditional Gender Roles and the “Damsel in Distress” Trope, as rather than waiting on Mr. Fox to change and save her, Mary actively pushes him to become a better version of himself.
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