The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

According to the narrator’s aunts, the narrator had been a “monster” of a toddler—but he somehow transformed into a frightened seven-year-old. Presently, the narrator muses that small children often think of themselves as gods—they want everyone else to conform to their way of seeing the world. The morning after the worm incident, the narrator’s foot looks better; there’s a blister where the hole was. At breakfast, the narrator’s mother says she will be working as an optometrist four days per week—which means that they have a new housekeeper, Ursula. Ursula will stay in the narrator’s old bedroom and look after the narrator and his sister. The narrator hopes Ursula is nice; the last housekeeper was not. He takes a book to the garden and reads about Egyptian gods. He explains that he likes myths because they’re better than adult stories or children’s stories. Adult stories are always slow and confusing, and he doesn’t get why grownups don’t want to read about Narnia.

When the narrator gets hungry, he goes to the kitchen. His mother stands with a strange woman and suddenly, the narrator’s heart hurts. The woman is pretty and very tall. The narrator’s mother introduces the woman as Ursula Monkton. Ursula pats the narrator’s sister’s head, and his sister grins and says she likes Ursula and wants to be Ursula when she grows up. Ursula laughs and asks the narrator if they’re friends too, but the narrator is terrified. He looks at Ursula, a grownup in her gray and pink skirt, and he imagines it flapping under an orange sky. He leaves the kitchen without food and returns to his book. His sister joins him to show off a gift from Ursula: a tiny gray leather purse containing half a crown. The narrator wants what half a crown can buy, but he thinks the gift is awful.

The narrator insists he doesn’t like Ursula, but the narrator’s sister says this is just because Ursula is her friend. The narrator is certain that Ursula isn’t friends with anyone and wants to tell Lettie this, but he’s not sure what to say. He’s sure that Ursula is his fault: she’s here because he let go of Lettie’s hand, and he can’t just flush Ursula down the drain. In retrospect, the narrator thinks that he should’ve run to the Hempstocks’ farm then, but his mother takes a taxi to work, and Ursula informs the children that they can’t leave the property without her. The narrator is hungry, but he’s afraid to eat Ursula’s sandwiches because they might contain worms. Instead, he secretly stuffs his pockets with fruit and hides it in his “laboratory,” a shed where he keeps his chemistry set.

The narrator explains that while adults follow paths and are content to do so, children explore. He knows many ways off the property that don’t force him to walk down the driveway, so he creeps down the hill. Ursula waits for him at the bottom of the hill with her skirt flapping. The narrator insists he’s just exploring, but Ursula sends him to his room for a nap. The narrator knows he’s too young to argue and win, so he grudgingly follows Ursula up the hill. Ursula explains that the narrator’s parents can’t afford this property, and soon, they’ll realize they can solve their problems by selling the land to developers who will turn it into a bunch of identical houses. If the narrator is lucky, he’ll live in one of them. But the narrator loves the house as it is; in a way, it’s a part of him.

The narrator asks who Ursula really is and why she’s giving people money. Ursula insists that everyone wants money and that it’ll make people happy if they let it. At the edge of the lawn, the narrator runs away to the house, but inside the back door, Ursula is waiting for him. She says that she’s been inside the narrator—so nobody will believe anything he says and she can make him be silent forever. The narrator lies on his bed. The hole in his foot aches, as does his heart. He tries to immerse himself in his mother’s old books about girls having adventures and being brave. He wonders if the Hempstocks have a telephone and sneaks into his parents’ room to call the operator. Instead, the narrator hears Ursula, saying that well-behaved children don’t sneakily use the telephone.

The narrator eats his emergency supply of chocolate and knows that he brought Ursula here when he let go of Lettie’s hand and the worm entered his foot. He also knows that Ursula is just a mask for the flapping thing he saw. The narrator returns to his book and waits for his parents to come home. Finally, Ursula calls the narrator downstairs. His sister is watching television and triumphantly says that Ursula will let her watch whatever she wants. He tries to tell his sister that Ursula isn’t nice, but his sister insists that Ursula is pretty. When the narrator’s mother gets home, he asks if she’ll make Ursula leave, but his mother refuses.

The narrator’s father gets home and they sit down for dinner. Though the meal includes all the narrator’s favorite foods, he eats nothing. He notices that his father seems to make jokes just for Ursula, and she laughs at all of them. They watch Mission: Impossible after dinner, which seems unusually unsettling, and then they go to bed. The door is closed tonight, so the narrator lies awake and hopes his parents will send Ursula away. The narrator gets up and sits at the bottom of the stairs. He hears his father tell Ursula that the narrator’s mother is away some nights to raise money for a well and contraception in Africa. Ursula says she knows all about contraception and then sends the narrator back to bed.