63 pages • 2-hour read
My Oxford Year: A Novel
A 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 8-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features depictions of illness, death, sexual content, and substance use.
Chapter 8 Summary
Chapter 8 begins with a quote from William Morris’s “The Defence of Guenevere,” 1858.
Ella goes to Lincoln College, which seems smaller and older than Magdalen. She finds Jamie’s office but hears him arguing with another man. Jamie is telling the other man to leave, but the other man is telling Jamie that he is absurd to abandon his family. The other man storms past Ella, who knocks on Jamie’s door. Ella is distracted by Jamie’s velvet pants, and he tells Ella that she failed to complete the essay assignment. He told everyone to discuss how the poem made them feel, but Ella wrote him a detailed essay on the literary meaning of her poem. Ella is frustrated, but Jamie reassures her that she is not ill-equipped for the course material. Ella asserts that men are incapable of long-term love and says Jamie is a perfect example. Jamie says they have quickly judged each other and quotes Ella’s article on education. Jamie emphasizes the importance of feeling poetry, and he tells Ella to read Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” out loud. Ella says she “gets” what he is doing, but he forces her to read anyway. As Ella reads, with Jamie sometimes saying the next lines for her, she feels something. She tells Jamie the poem made her feel lonely, and she privately connects the color of Jamie’s eyes to a swimming hole from her youth. Jamie says the poem makes him feel hopeful, but Cecelia interrupts them. Jamie moves away from Ella, who stands up and hears her phone ring. Ella excuses herself and takes a call from Gavin.
Chapter 9 Summary
Chapter 9 begins with a quote from Charlotte or Emily Bronte’s “Stanzas,” 1850.
At dinner, Charlie, Tom, and Maggie interrogate Ella about her session with Jamie, and Maggie senses that Ella and Jamie have more than just sexual chemistry.
Charlie brings the group to the Eagle and Child, a pub, and orders Ella a gin and tonic. Cecelia beckons them to join her, and she introduces them to Ahmed, the son of an ambassador; Ridley, the rower Charlie likes; and Ian, who is drunk. Ella gets stuck next to Ian, and Ahmed makes a disparaging comment about Rhodies. Cecelia clarifies that Rhodies rarely adapt successfully to the loose structure of Oxford and makes a comment about forming relationships with tutors. Charlie suggests a drinking game, and Ian asks Ella’s political leanings.
Everyone drinks heavily, and Ella is entertained by Maggie’s blush, Tom falling asleep at the table, and Charlie’s flirting with Ridley. Ian says Americans are stupid, which offends Ella. When Ian claims the US will end up irrelevant like England, the group gets quiet, but Ian laughs and breaks the tension. When Ian tries to kiss Ella, she stops him, but he makes a suggestive comment. Ella punches Ian in the face, knocking him over, but the group cheers. Ella decides to leave, crawling over Ian’s body and leaving the group laughing and cheering.
Chapter 10 Summary
Chapter 10 begins with a quote from Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush,” 1900.
Outside the pub, Ella leans against a wall and tries to calm down, noting that she has never felt such a loss of control. The meeting with Jamie confused her, and Ian’s aggression pushed her over the edge. Jamie appears, and she tells him to go inside to see their friends, especially Cecelia. Jamie denies having a relationship with Cecelia and invites Ella to a different pub. Ella rejects his offer and walks away, but Jamie walks with her.
Ella and Jamie go to a different pub, and Gavin calls, asking about education in California. Ella and Jamie find a booth in the pub, and the bartender and waitress know Jamie. They drink beer and eat snacks, and a teenager named Ricky brings Jamie a bottle of whiskey. Jamie tells Ella about his education, doing his undergraduate work at Christ Church, his graduate degree at New College, and his doctorate at Cambridge. Jamie silences multiple calls from his father. Jamie’s post-doctoral work is rewriting his dissertation on Tennyson’s In Memoriam. Ella shares her background in education policy. Jamie confesses that he rarely dates anyone for long, comparing people to books of which he already knows the ending. Ella notices a closed room, which Jamie calls a “snug,” and they go in. Ella confesses that coming to Oxford was a childhood dream of hers, and she chose to study poetry to experience humanity and beauty. Jamie respects this reasoning and explains how he sees literature as sexual. Jamie’s mother tries to call him, and he silences his phone. Ella needs to leave, and Jamie walks with her. While Jamie hails a cab, he tells Ella about Tennyson losing his best friend, Hallam, when he was young. Tennyson’s grief informed much of his poetry. Jamie suspects that Tennyson’s poor eyesight was the reason for his tight imagery and broad concepts. Jamie likes the idea that Tennyson grieved Hallam until his death, at which he called out to Hallam. Ella imagines Jamie kissing her, but their taxi arrives.
Chapter 11 Summary
Chapter 11 begins with a quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere,” 1842.
Eugenia wakes Ella up, and Ella cannot remember the end of her night. She is naked, and Eugenia opens the bathroom, revealing Jamie. Eugenia leaves, and Jamie says he needs to go, adding that he does not want a relationship. Ella pretends to be angry, making Jamie panic, then bursts out laughing. Jamie leaves, and Ella refuses to be disappointed.
Ella spends the day wandering, buys a gown, and meets Charlie, Maggie, and Tom at Hall for dinner. They prod Ella about her night, apologizing for Ian’s behavior, and Ella does not tell them about Jamie. Ella sees Jamie at another table talking to a woman, but she avoids him. Tom suggests getting different food, and Charlie arranges for everyone to meet at his room. Charlie reveals that he saw Jamie leave Ella’s room that morning, and Tom and Maggie laugh with him. Ella is shocked but glad to not have to keep a secret. She makes eye contact with Jamie, who gestures toward the door.
Jamie pulls Ella into a pantry and says he wants to keep sleeping together, but he does not want a relationship. Ella says she is going back to the US when her dissertation is finished. Ella wants to have an affair with Jamie, but she sets the condition that they are honest with each other. Jamie admits that he wanted to stay in Ella’s room that morning, and Ella offers Jamie her hand. He turns away from her at first, then turns back and kisses her.
Chapter 12 Summary
Chapter 12 begins with a quote from “Fragment,” by an unknown author.
In the second-person, Ella describes how she’s never had a relationship, and a traumatic event in her youth dissuaded her from pursuing romances. Over six weeks, Ella and Jamie start sleeping together after class, but they avoid making plans or commitments. Jamie starts bringing Ella to new places to have sex, they drink together, and they occasionally discuss school. Ella likes their arrangement, noting that the sex is great, but her friends are convinced she is developing feelings for Jamie. Eventually, he plans a date with Ella, and she is unsure if this date will interfere with their perfect situation.
Chapter 13 Summary
Chapter 13 begins with a quote from Christina Rossetti’s “Promises Like Pie-Crust,” 1861.
Jamie brings Ella to the river and borrows a “punt”—a small boat. They get in, and Ella asks if Jamie ever writes poetry. He says he can only appreciate poetry, not create it, but Ella insists that he should try. Jamie says Oxford is full of gods and immortals who never die, and Ella says Jamie could join them and become the next Tennyson. To distract Ella, Jamie pulls her on top of him, kisses her, and offers her hot chocolate. The hot chocolate triggers a memory for Ella, who turns away, and Jamie insists she tell him about it. Twelve years ago, when Ella was 13, her father died on her birthday. She was sick, and he went out in a storm to get her hot chocolate. His death destroyed her mother, who never fully recovered. Ella stayed with her aunt for three weeks. Ella remembers reciting comedy routines with her father, and Jamie recognizes the comedians’ names. Ella is surprised by Jamie’s kindness, and she tries to get on top of him and kiss him. He stops her, saying they should not use sex to protect themselves from pain. Ella gets angry, asking what hurt Jamie that keeps him from wanting a relationship, but he says he does not want to hurt Ella. Laughing that they just had their first fight, Jamie suggests drifting silently in the boat. He invites Ella to his house the next day, and she accepts.
Chapters 8-13 Analysis
This section accelerates the romance of the novel, transforming Jamie from an irritating professor into a lover. The focal point of Ella and Jamie’s romance is the restriction placed on Ella by her planned return date. Though Ella develops feelings for Jamie, she emphasizes the futility of dating during her Oxford year, but this emphasis takes on a more personal note when, in Chapter 12, Ella explains how she has never had a romantic relationship before. Chapter 12 also skips ahead six weeks, meaning Jamie and Ella are steadily dating. These details indicate that Jamie is a new experience for Ella, adding to her fantasy year at Oxford by introducing not only romance but also an intimacy and emotional vulnerability she has never risked before. Jamie is the first person with whom Ella has developed a sense of trust, and her only condition for their relationship is that they “be honest with each other. If one of us is getting bored, or starting to have feelings they shouldn’t, no lying” (104). Ella’s condition was intended to make Jamie feel safe in ending the relationship after a short time, since she assumed he only wanted a brief sexual relationship. However, Ella is the one who appears to be developing “feelings [she] shouldn’t.” The irony of this condition is that it reveals Ella’s own fear: She crafts rules to protect herself from grief, yet these very rules become the pathway through which she risks deeper attachment.
The intimate tutorial in Jamie’s office in Chapter 8 becomes a key turning point. Forced to read Arnold’s “Dover Beach” aloud, Ella begins to feel rather than analyze, and she unexpectedly links the poem’s loneliness to a childhood memory of a swimming hole. Whelan uses this moment of sensory association as a device to collapse academic study into emotional self-disclosure. The interruption by Cecelia reinforces how fragile this breakthrough is, as any reminder of Jamie’s history with other women threatens Ella’s tentative step toward vulnerability.
Ella’s character develops as quickly as her relationship with Jamie, with her rapid progress with Gavin, her fast friendships with her classmates, and her exploration of her own past. When Jamie gives Ella hot chocolate in Chapter 13, it reminds her of her father, who died in a car accident while getting Ella her annual birthday hot chocolate. She thinks: “I had cried about that. I sobbed about it. I fixated on not having the hot chocolate so I wouldn’t think about what else I’d never have again” (115), highlighting the broader importance of her father’s death to her character. Chapter 12 makes sense once Chapter 13 reveals this element of Ella’s past, illuminating the complication that keeps Ella from developing close relationships. Her fear is not rejection or distraction but loss. Losing her father made her realize how a person can disappear, taking with them all the traditions, moments, and happiness they shared.
Ella’s fixation on the hot chocolate shows how she learned to redirect her grief into manageable details, a strategy tied to the rigidly organized life she builds for herself as an adult. Her carefully scheduled year at Oxford, marked by her immediate purchase of a return ticket and constant pressure from her political work, reflects this same attempt to contain loss within structure and highlights Career Ambition Versus Personal Fulfillment. Jamie’s presence disrupts that order, gradually reawakening emotions she has long repressed beneath discipline and ambition. Whelan embeds this revelation structurally by placing Ella’s backstory at the midpoint of her growing romance, ensuring that love and loss are intertwined from the outset.
Chapters 9 through 11 also highlight Ella’s increasing loss of control, both socially and emotionally. Her impulsive decision to punch Ian at the pub reveals a side of herself she barely recognizes, as she admits she has never been so “out of control.” In literary terms, Whelan uses this violent gesture as foreshadowing: Ella’s attempts to regulate her emotions will repeatedly fail in the face of grief, just as her body fails to obey her careful plans. Similarly, waking up with Jamie in Chapter 11 without remembering how the night ended undermines her sense of agency. The discussion of control versus surrender, already evident in her strict rules about honesty, begins to dissolve as she realizes intimacy requires exposure to risk.
Ella’s relationship with Jamie allows them both to explore The Transformative Power of Love and Loss, as they cope with the obstacles keeping them from investing fully in a relationship. While Jamie and Ella are drinking, Jamie admits that he usually has brief, sexual relationships because he feels like he fully understands his partners, removing the need to continue getting to know them. Quoting Jamie, Ella responds: “If you don’t open yourself up to life, how can you ever be surprised?” but Jamie cuts back, saying: “I would love to be surprised. Alas, very few people manage to do so, in the end” (89). Though Ella admits to feeling the same way, they are both being disingenuous about themselves and their experiences. Neither character is open to surprise, and they have both been hurt in the past when they did open up. Their pessimism is less a matter of misanthropy and more a matter of personal defense. The “surprise” they might find in a relationship could be painful, such as Ella losing her father or Jamie’s description of Tennyson’s life and loss. By entwining Ella’s grief narrative with Jamie’s reflections on Tennyson, Whelan foregrounds how literature becomes a vehicle for articulating emotions both characters struggle to admit aloud.
Jamie’s characterization in this section complicates the idea that he is only interested in casual relationships. His insistence in the punt that they not use sex as a distraction from pain suggests an awareness shaped by Oliver’s death, as though he recognizes how grief can distort intimacy. This restraint, paradoxically, shows his seriousness, as he wants their connection to be about more than avoidance. Yet their sexual relationship quickly becomes adventurous and frequent, with trysts after tutorials and encounters in unconventional places, underscoring how physical intimacy is also their way of testing risk together. The fact that Jamie is unwell adds further weight. He knows his time is limited, and his willingness to let Ella in hints at a desire for genuine closeness even as he anticipates loss. In this sense, Jamie’s illness shadows their affair, but it also makes his openness with Ella feel like a profound departure from his guarded past, where brevity and detachment defined his relationships.
Unlock all 63 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs