Identity In Middlesex

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In the novel, Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides reveals that one’s own life can determine their identity. Although, genetics is the base of the identity provided to a person, Eugenides notes that there are two indicators that can reveal Callie/Cal’s identity: gender and sex. Identity is meant to be what a person feels is right for themselves and what gender they associate with rather than what another person may think or feel is better for that person. Identity is not only caused the sex of the person, but rather determined by the gender that one associates with.
Callie was born with a condition called 5 alpha-reductase deficiency. Jeffrey Eugenides does spotlight throughout Middlesex that Callie/Cal’s genes plays a role in the cause of the disorder. This condition causes the person …show more content…

It was until Callie/Cal hit the age of puberty when she discovered something was wrong, even Tessie thought so. While in an all-girls boarding school, Callie/Cal did not feel comfortable changing in front of her classmates in the locker room. The reason was that she was not developing bigger breasts and getting curvy hips like the rest of the girls. The interesting part of Callie/Cal’s skepticism of her identity was when she gave a “quick taxonomy of the locker room” (296). She saw, what she called the Charm Bracelets, they were all well developed and mature girls with perky breasts and pubic hair. Since Callie/Cal identified himself as a girl at that time, he felt “a bundle of emotions: envy, certainly, but also disdain. Inferiority and superiority at once. Above all there was panic” (297). I believe the locker room incident, helped Callie/Cal become more aware of the differences of the bodies of her and her female classmates. Also, I believe that due to the differences in the two types of bodies, Callie/Cal became sexually attracted to the other girls’

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