The omniscient narrator invokes the muse—a common convention in epic poetry—to tell his story. Born as a girl, Calliope Helen Stephanides, he becomes a boy, Cal, as an adolescent. Now 41, he finally tells not only his story but also the story of his immigrant Greek family.

His older brother, Chapter Eleven, is sent up to the attic of the family home to retrieve his grandmother’s silkworm box. Desdemona needs her silver spoon; her daughter-in-law, Tessie, is pregnant with the narrator, and the spoon can determine the child’s sex. Her prediction is that the child is “going to be a boy” (6). Tessie and Milton Stephanides are disappointed: They’d hoped for a girl. Milton dismisses his mother’s superstitious methods, saying science is more reliable.

In fact, Milton is so taken with the idea of having a girl that he decides to take fate into his own hands. Investing in a basal thermometer and armed with information from the latest Scientific American, Milton convinces Tessie to acquiesce to his formula—though she’s anxious about attempting such control. The boisterous behavior of their first son, whom the narrator calls Chapter Eleven, convinces Tessie that she needs a girl child as a counterbalance.