Lefty’s American Dream of Progress fails. His ideals clash with the realities of an imperfect world where inequalities are rife and cannot be overcome. He finds out that the ideals enshrined in the American Dream do not apply to all. His different businesses, due to which he “worked seven days a week,” come with a price. In order to provide for his family, “he had to be exiled from them” (Eugenides 136). Close to the end of his life Lefty is penniless and speechless due to multiple strokes. Cultural hybridization therefore fails in the case of the immigrant generation of the Stephanides. Another individual seeking the American Dream is Sourmelina, Lefty and Desdemona’s cousin. Unlike Lefty, she is the paragon of immigrant integration.
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In the conflict between dreams and reality, Cal chooses reality. He takes control of his own fate and faces his destiny. Cal is a hermaphrodite but he accepts and recognizes his sexual identity and uses that confirmation to go on to live a productive life. Cal’s American Dream is not focused on idealistic or materialistic advancements but on identity. He travels through space and time, looking for answers in his family’s past, mythology and genetics. Cal accepts his hybrid nature in private, but there is no social recognition of his physical hybridity. He says “I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It’s not the best way to live. But it’s the way I am” (Eugenides 106). Eugenides’ novel seems here to be pushing the boundaries of the American Dream by posing the question of what it would mean for people like Cal. Most notably, by portraying Cal’s predicament, the author points to the lack of societal recognition of persons with a hermaphrodite condition. The house in Middlesex, a mirror to Cal’s condition, is “a place designed for a new type of human being, who would inhabit a new world” and Cal openly declares “I could not help feeling of course, that that person was me, me and all the others like me” (Eugenides 595). While the house can accommodate all Cal’s needs, it is doubtful if the new world outside will be able to accommodate his personal demands of freedom and dignity as a hermaphrodite. Middlesex reveals different layers of the American Dream in the twentieth century but it is also a reminder that the Dream in its present state remains far from inclusive. The American Dream seems to be a myth that is calculated to end in failure and disillusion. While the dream is losing its lustre and Americans recognize that it is becoming significantly harder to achieve, the concept endures in the minds of the numerous individuals who continue to dissect and
In the conflict between dreams and reality, Cal chooses reality. He takes control of his own fate and faces his destiny. Cal is a hermaphrodite but he accepts and recognizes his sexual identity and uses that confirmation to go on to live a productive life. Cal’s American Dream is not focused on idealistic or materialistic advancements but on identity. He travels through space and time, looking for answers in his family’s past, mythology and genetics. Cal accepts his hybrid nature in private, but there is no social recognition of his physical hybridity. He says “I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It’s not the best way to live. But it’s the way I am” (Eugenides 106). Eugenides’ novel seems here to be pushing the boundaries of the American Dream by posing the question of what it would mean for people like Cal. Most notably, by portraying Cal’s predicament, the author points to the lack of societal recognition of persons with a hermaphrodite condition. The house in Middlesex, a mirror to Cal’s condition, is “a place designed for a new type of human being, who would inhabit a new world” and Cal openly declares “I could not help feeling of course, that that person was me, me and all the others like me” (Eugenides 595). While the house can accommodate all Cal’s needs, it is doubtful if the new world outside will be able to accommodate his personal demands of freedom and dignity as a hermaphrodite. Middlesex reveals different layers of the American Dream in the twentieth century but it is also a reminder that the Dream in its present state remains far from inclusive. The American Dream seems to be a myth that is calculated to end in failure and disillusion. While the dream is losing its lustre and Americans recognize that it is becoming significantly harder to achieve, the concept endures in the minds of the numerous individuals who continue to dissect and