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Theodora “Tessie” Stephanides
Chapter Eleven is Cal’s older brother, Milton and Tessie’s first child. (His unconventional name is never explained, and the reader never learns if it is his given name or a nickname.) As a child, he is nerdy and unpopular, but after narrowly avoiding being drafted into the Vietnam War and beginning college at the University of Michigan, he undergoes a drastic transformation. Influenced by the countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Chapter Eleven grows out his hair, starts meditating, takes acid, buys a motorbike, and becomes a vegetarian. He also—to the horror of his parents—switches his major from engineering to anthropology, before dropping out altogether. After Cal runs away from home, Chapter Eleven begins spending more time with his parents again, and agrees to take over Hercules Hot Dogs. However, following Milton’s death, Chapter Eleven drives the business into the ground within five years.
Chapter Eleven Stephanides Quotes in Middlesex
The Middlesex quotes below are all either spoken by Chapter Eleven Stephanides or refer to Chapter Eleven Stephanides. 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:
).
Book 3: Waxing Lyrical
Quotes
I suspect that Chapter Eleven’s transformation was caused in no small part by that day on his bed when his life was decided by lottery. Am I projecting? Saddling my brother with my own obsessions with chance and fate? Maybe. But as we planned a trip—a trip that had been promised when Milton was saved from another war—it appeared that Chapter Eleven, taking chemical trips of his own, was trying to escape what he had dimly perceived while wrapped in an afghan: the possibility that not only his draft number was decided by lottery, but that everything was.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Chapter Eleven Stephanides Quotes in Middlesex
The Middlesex quotes below are all either spoken by Chapter Eleven Stephanides or refer to Chapter Eleven Stephanides. 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:
).
Book 3: Waxing Lyrical
Quotes
I suspect that Chapter Eleven’s transformation was caused in no small part by that day on his bed when his life was decided by lottery. Am I projecting? Saddling my brother with my own obsessions with chance and fate? Maybe. But as we planned a trip—a trip that had been promised when Milton was saved from another war—it appeared that Chapter Eleven, taking chemical trips of his own, was trying to escape what he had dimly perceived while wrapped in an afghan: the possibility that not only his draft number was decided by lottery, but that everything was.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
