"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex is an outline of the life of Calliope Stephanides who grew to the age of fourteen believing that she was a girl with unnatural thoughts for the same sex. As puberty takes hold of her friends and classmates, both Calliope and her family begin to worry about the growing gap between her and the average teenage girl; this marks the beginning of a new life for Calliope who finds she is really a he. Under the new name, Cal, this individual struggles with identity management as he traces his transformation from female to male and the genetic condition, beginning with his paternal grandparents that caused it. “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smog less Detroit day in January of

As great effect as emotions can have on someone, even greater is the effect of how one reacts to his emotions. Arguably the two most influential of these emotions are guilt and anger. They can drive a man to madness or encourage actions of vindication. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are subject to this very notion in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter. Hester simply accepted that what she had done was wrong, whereas Dimmesdale, being a man of high regard, did not want to accept the reality of what he did. Similar to Hester and Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth allows his emotions to influence his life; however, his influence came as the result of his anger. Throughout the book, Hawthorne documents how Dimmesdale and Hester 's

Why is sin important? It is believed that sin is important to people because their deity places guilt on their wrongdoings to show that those actions are not to be repeated. In contrary to this belief, there are people with religious views that hold no importance with sin. Depending on the individual’s religious views, sin can be a conflict between oneself and a “higher” being or it can not affect the individual at all. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Dimmesdale is an ordained Puritan priest that had committed a grave sin in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He had committed adultery with a married woman, Hester, the woman that is married to Roger Chillingworth. After Chillingworth has heard about this news, he seeks

All of the major characters in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne are dynamic and go through some form of character development. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, who are at the forefront of the central conflict in the plot of the novel, are no exception. While their respective evolutions in character were noticeably different, each was emphasized by the three scaffold scenes. The differences of Hester and Dimmesdale’s respective character developments are highlighted and emphasized by the three scaffold scenes in the novel.

Throughout time, war has changed a person in both physical and emotional ways. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque strived to write about the true realities of war which contradicted the common, romantic belief about war. This novel captures and shifts the audience into a world so different than their home and allows them to almost experience war first-hand. All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of a normal teenager named Paul Baumer who went from a typical school in Germany, to the front lines of World War 1. As we read the story, we could feel the many changes that Paul experienced, from just arriving at the front, all the way until his death. Two of many horrific changes that Paul experienced are the

A child stealing candy from the bowl when she knows she isn’t supposed to; a drug addict coming forward to admit he has a terrible plight; a student cheating on their final exam after choosing not to study; a young girl admitting to pushing another child down on the playground; a husband cheating on his wife. Some stories of these subjects are known by all, able to heal and move forward with a clear conscience, while others are sheltered within them, left to fester and grow in destructiveness. All of these examples portray a subject either bound, or given peace by the truth of something depending on whether it is concealed or uncovered. The power and significance of exposed/hidden truth is something utilized in writing all the time when an

Nathaniel Hawthorne was quite progressive for his time and his novel, The Scarlet Letter, is a wonderful example of this. Before he married his wife, Sophia Peabody, Hawthorne joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist group (Nathaniel Hawthorne). According to Merriam Webster, transcendentalism is, “a philosophy that emphasizes the a priori conditions of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality or that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality” (“Transcendentalism”). Put simply, transcendentalists thought that intuition and knowledge of ourselves is more a more important reality than the scientific, sensual reality. As a group, these people held very progressive views on women’s rights, education,

In total, both novels act as powerful statements on the two world wars and the critical role that family and comradeship has between them. Without family, the soldiers and prisoners would struggle to stay alive, searching for a reason to

The novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a futuristic American city. In the novel, firemen burn books of all sorts. Guy Montag, the main character of the story, is a fireman. However, Montag secretly loves books, which is an aspect that differentiates him from his coworkers.

This is achieved through the portrayal of the person lives of his characters, the main character’s, Paul’s, reflections, when the main character returned to his home, and citizens that the soldiers encountered. As Remarque narrates these experiences, he indicates that there is this detachment between the civilians and the soldiers. This is most prevalent when the main character interacts with his family and people in his hometown in instances such as when his mother asks if it bad out on the western front and Paul thinks “you would not understand, you could never realize it. And you shall never realize it. Was it bad, you ask” (Remarque 161.) Since Paul’s mother does have cancer, it might be just that this is his attempt at protection beyond the battle. However, this is not the only instance in which he does a similar feat, such as when he meets Kemmerich’s mother to personally speak with her about his death in which he feels some sort of empathy but finds her emotions to be futile and senseless (Remarque 181.) This furthers the argument by Remarque of this disconnect, yet it is drawn together with the main character’s experience at the bar with his statement that “besides, the war may be rather different from what people think” (Remarque 167.) While this disconnect may occur with those whose homes are distant from the fronts, which Paul’s town may be, this account forges this false concept that the western front was in the middle of nowhere and did not affect any civilians. The proposition of this idea by Remarque mutes the ordeals endured by those who lived near the fronts, those who were forced into a position to become refugees, and the hardships that everyone at home had to sustain all in the name of

In Jeffrey Eugenides’s book Middlesex, Calliope Stephanide tells the story of not only her transformation, but also the world’s transformation into a completely different entity. Brother and sister become husband and wife, Greeks become Americans, and, most importantly, a young girl becomes a man. Along with being a transformative novel, Middlesex is also considered a modern epic. It is an epic account that retells the history of a recessive chromosome that made its way into the life of the main character. Cal describes this recessive chromosome’s journey as it travels through many imposing events: “Cal needs to tell the story of his past in order to function in the present” (Cohen). This genetic chromosome survives a fire in Smyrna,

Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides tell the story of Cal and his ancestors. Through this story Eugenides implements science in order to inform the readers what made Cal what he is. Science adds a shroud of realism to hide that the story is nonfiction. Eugenides adds more complexity to his work by arguing the relevance of science in the modern world. He doesn’t endorse science completely because he also critiques science for its lack of compassion when it comes to treating people with unfortunate genetic mutations such as Cal.

The 2002 novel Middlesex, written by Jeffrey Eugenides, is a novel that should be read by much of the population. It chronicles three generations worth of Greek-Americans and touches upon many important issues that are still noticeable in 2017. The novel is a coming of age story for the main character and the narrator Calliope Stephanides who was born a girl but because of a mutated gene in the family DNA found out she was born a hermaphrodite, someone born with a combination of human sex organs. Middlesex is one of the most vital pieces of American literature to come out of the 2000’s because it forces us to look outside of our comfort zone and expand our minds to the struggles that are faced by those that are sometimes ignored.

Through Utopia, More criticized and provided the leaders with keen insights to help improve his world by claiming the leaders should not manipulate laws to control their people. In Utopia, More stated, “Let him not rashly revive law already abrogated by disuse, especially if they have been long forgotten and never wanted”(1). More means that a leader should not manipulate or bring back any law that is unwanted. He does not want the leader making laws for his own benefit. More’s point was that leaders should not use laws that are outdated or create new ones to control their people. They should not manipulate the laws in any corrupt manner. Sir Thomas More wanted what was best for the community, by not having any laws that weren’t agreed on by

The development of every person is the journey from childhood to adulthood through the challenging period of adolescence. This period leads to a great transformation of the human body which also has a great effect on the psychological state of a person. Such transformation of a unique intersex person is discovered by Jeffrey Eugenides in his novel Middlesex that became a bestseller and won a Pulitzer Prize. The author fills the novel with numerous autobiographic details, whereas the work traces the story of a biological male who was raised as a girl until the truth is revealed in the period of adolescence. I also have found a variety of moments that resonate with my feelings and experiences of adolescence during puberty that was still far from the hell Calliope faces. The example of the transformation illustrated by Eugenides in Middlesex can be viewed as a change that any person goes through, but that is much more radical in its effect.