Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides appears to be one of the most interesting works that gets numerous awards recently. The key issue that makes this story a compelling work is the way used by the author when he depicts the protagonist’s life. Despite the horrible gender situation happened to Cal Stephanides or Calliope, his narration is full of humor, and that makes it especially vivid, thoughtful, and moving. A special humoristic attitude to the problems makes the narrator strong so that he can overcome a terrible distress and finally come to terms with his gender identity.
The novel presents a life path of Cal Stephanides who was born as a male intersex which means that he is a man with a feminine appearance (Ehlen 4). The narrator describes his unique gender identity as being born twice: “first, as a baby girl” and “then again, as a teenage boy” (Eugenides 3). Cal or Calliope treats himself with sarcastic humor making the emphasis that his photo was published in the magazine Genetics and Heredity and The Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology. The sarcastic attitude to his gender makes the narrator less vulnerable. Also, the readers can see the author as a person who has come to terms with the fact that he is different to other people.
The stylistic approach to the story works as the key issue that discloses intersexuality and its place in modern society. Cal’s life demonstrates that human society is full of stereotypes, including the gender ones. Since the protagonist is both male and female, people do not treat him as equal to them. Cal’s humoristic and, sometimes, even sarcastic depictions of his life within “roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time” (Eugenides 4) demonstrate that he knows it is unfair to treat as someone who is too different to others. He mentions his situation as “the polluted pool of the Stephanides family” (Eugenides 4). Interestingly, Cal is aware of his specific humor, and makes the emphasis on its genetic origin.
The sense of humor is not the only way to depict gender stereotypes experienced by the protagonist of the story. The narrator highlights the tragedy of his life as a common problem of his family. Cal’s life is closely connected to his parents and grandparents life because “living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead” (Eugenides 425). The community of people, therefore, can be possible in death since Cal thinks that in this life we grow backwards.
Humor and tragedy “provide in the novel an opportunity for Cal to come to terms with his trauma” (Boever 64).
The novel shows that gender is a category that is based on personal identification. Therefore, the protagonist demonstrates transitions “from female-identified Calliope to male-identified Cal” (Koch 190). Humoristic and tragic expressions make obvious that the key idea of the story is to show gender as a personal identification and further acceptance. Cal experiences several births – as a female in 1960, as a male when a teen, and the third and the last one at the age of forty-one. The last birth relates to the understanding his life as a result of nine generations’ story so that Cal accepts himself as a part of community although being different to it.
The novel Middlesex appears to be especially interesting to analyze because it discloses gender stereotypes that still exist in human society. The narrator of the novel, Cal or Calliope, uses humor and tragedy as the key means of the overall stylistic approach. These means demonstrate that intersex identity of the protagonist makes him both different but a part of community.
Works Cited
Boever, Arne De. States of Exception in the Contemporary Novel. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2012. Print.
Ehlen, Kathrin. The Different Implications of the Name “Middlesex” in the Novel of the Same Name by Jeffrey Eugenides. Munich: GRIN Verlag, 2011. Print.
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex: A Novel. New York: Picador, 2002. Print.
Koch, Michaela. Discursive Intersexions. New York: Verlag, 2017. Print.