40 pages • 1 hour read
Karen CushmanThe Midwife's Apprentice
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1995A 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 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Boy”
Alyce starts secretly watching Jane at work, gaining knowledge of herbs as well as less useful information about delivering children, such as yelling into the birth canal that God wants the baby to come out. One morning when Alyce visits the calves she helped deliver, she finds a boy huddled with the cows for warmth. Her arrival startles him, but before he can run, Alyce stops him and asks who he is. The boy argues he’s “nobody,” to which Alyce says, “everybody is somebody and so are you” before offering him food and taking him home (60). After cleaning him up and convincing him to choose a real name for himself—Edward—she sends him to one of the rich families who are hiring boys, all the while feeling proud that she helped.
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Leaving”
One night, a boy comes to fetch Alyce to help deliver a baby because the mother, Emma Blunt, heard how she helped the bailiff’s wife and “will have no one but Alyce” (64). Alyce does everything Jane would do, but the baby refuses to come. Alyce sends for Jane, who fusses until the baby is born, and Alyce leaves the village, feeling sad and ashamed.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Inn”
By evening, Alyce still feels like a failure and unused to the harshness of living outdoors again. She stops at an inn, where she works for room and board. The innkeeper and his wife find her so useful that they ask her to stay, and Alyce works there as the season shifts into autumn. All the while, her mood never improves, and as Christmas arrives, Alyce remains sullen and “[goes] about the business of Christmas as if she were mucking out a stable” (73).
In January, Alyce notices a man who has been at the inn for weeks—a magister (scholar) who is writing a book of compiled knowledge he calls an “encylopaedic compendium.” Overcome by someone intelligent enough to write and her own curiosity about letters, Alyce tends to his table often. From listening to the man talk to Purr—who followed her to the inn—Alyce starts to learn letters and becomes absorbed with putting them together to make words.
One day toward the end of winter, Magister Reese muses out loud about whether he wants to stay and finish the book, and then he directly asks Alyce what she wants. After thinking about it all day, Alyce tells him she wants “a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world” (77).
Chapter 13 Summary: “Visitors”
Alyce stays at the inn through the spring, when Will from the village comes with a load of wood. He asks why she left the village, and Alyce tells the story of her failure, to which he tells her, “Just because you don’t know everything don’t mean you know nothing” (80). A few weeks later, Jane arrives at the inn to talk to the magister. She asks if he’s seen her former apprentice, saying she’s glad the girl is no longer with her because there’s no place for midwives who give up when babies are difficult. Alyce is shocked that Jane didn’t call Alyce a failure.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
The Power of Kindness is evident in this section. Building upon her earlier kindnesses toward Purr and Will, Alyce realizes that she is now in a position to help others. Her care toward Edward symbolizes how far she’s come and is in some ways a mirror for her relationship with Jane. As Jane gives Alyce a chance when no one else would, Alyce does the same for Edward, choosing to offer him food and shelter instead of chasing him out of the village because he has to beg. However, just as Alyce’s approach to midwifery is imbued with compassion and caring that Jane lacks, so too is her relationship with Edward. Most importantly, unlike Jane, whose services and assistance of Alyce are transactional, Alyce expects nothing in return for her kindness.
Chapter 11, “The Leaving,” represents a significant turning point for Alyce, as her confidence is again shaken during Emma Blunt’s difficult birth. Despite being requested by name—and instead of Jane—Alyce is unable to deliver the baby, even with her now skillful soothing abilities and knowledge of remedies and herbs. Perceiving herself as having failed, she exiles herself from the village. In Chapter 13, Will and Jane both help Alyce regain her confidence in different ways. Will applies kindness, reassuring Alyce that it’s okay if she isn’t perfect because no one is. Jane has a harsher view on Alyce’s disappearance, but not for the reason Alyce expects: Rather than believing Alyce a failure, Jane understands what being a midwife means—specifically that there will be babies she simply cannot bring into the world. The difference between Jane and Alyce here represents the impact of experience. Alyce is new to life as a midwife, and a few successes made her think she could be successful every time. By contrast, Jane has been a midwife long enough to know that her methods are not foolproof. Altogether, Will’s and Jane’s visits are a stepping stone for Alyce as she works her way toward understanding her limits and how to coexist with them.
The character of the magister symbolizes The Comfort of Finding One’s Place, as well as how it’s never too late to learn something new. Through listening to him talk about his work, Alyce begins to learn letters, which leads to her learning to read and write. She doesn’t know it at this point, but this is more fuel for the idea that Confidence Builds Self-Worth. While the skills she learns from the magister have nothing to do with midwifery, the magister’s knowledge is not wasted or of no use: All knowledge has its place, even if that place is only to help one understand that they are capable of learning. At the end of Chapter 12, the magister asks Alyce what she wants, and she responds, “a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world” (77). Deep down, Alyce has wanted to be a midwife ever since Chapter 3, but this knowledge has been buried in her mind until this point.
