In Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the main characters feel that they are alienated from the rest of society because they are different, and they feel that they must hide their identities. Being different can make a person feel defective and shuts them down. They feel that they have to put all their energies not in being who they are but in hiding who they are. Hiding your identity makes you a miserable trapped person, to be truly happy you must become your full self and be truly liberated.. Calliope starts to view herself as different from her peers when she is an adolescent, feeling stunted in contrast to her peers’ bodies where “deadlines encoded in the species are being met” (286). The worst part about this situation is that Calliope
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She had more or less for her whole life in some form rejected the fact that who she was was different from others, even if she didn 't know what she was rejecting. Rejecting herself had made her miserable. So Calliope decided that she was “not a girl”(439) and that she was “a boy”(439), and Calliope became Cal. In his journey to find himself Cal ran away to San Francisco where he found that “he wasn 't the only one” (489) struggling with his gender and identity. This made him comfortable enough with himself to start exploring what his new identity would be. It took Cal decades to develop into someone he was comfortable with. Decades later he likes his outward apperance, his “wicked grin”(498) and the “flames in (his) eyes”(498). However maybe the ultimate confirmation of the fact that he is comfortable with who he is that he is willing to “take off (his) cloths” (514) in front a someone he is really emotionally invested in. He is willing to be completely vulnerable, to have his whole identity on display to someone he doesn 't want to lose.
Desdemona, unlike Cal, was at the beginning of her life completely confident in her identity. When she was in greece she had possessed the “natural power” (24), of a person self assured of their own place in the world. Before she moved to America Desdemona was very independent. She had her own business cultivating silkworms. She prided herself on the fact that her “silk was always the best”(30). She was so confident in her own identity that she projected her values onto Lefty, her brother, by playing “matchmaker” (30). She is self assured because she knows who she is and she fits into the rural village
She had more or less for her whole life in some form rejected the fact that who she was was different from others, even if she didn 't know what she was rejecting. Rejecting herself had made her miserable. So Calliope decided that she was “not a girl”(439) and that she was “a boy”(439), and Calliope became Cal. In his journey to find himself Cal ran away to San Francisco where he found that “he wasn 't the only one” (489) struggling with his gender and identity. This made him comfortable enough with himself to start exploring what his new identity would be. It took Cal decades to develop into someone he was comfortable with. Decades later he likes his outward apperance, his “wicked grin”(498) and the “flames in (his) eyes”(498). However maybe the ultimate confirmation of the fact that he is comfortable with who he is that he is willing to “take off (his) cloths” (514) in front a someone he is really emotionally invested in. He is willing to be completely vulnerable, to have his whole identity on display to someone he doesn 't want to lose.
Desdemona, unlike Cal, was at the beginning of her life completely confident in her identity. When she was in greece she had possessed the “natural power” (24), of a person self assured of their own place in the world. Before she moved to America Desdemona was very independent. She had her own business cultivating silkworms. She prided herself on the fact that her “silk was always the best”(30). She was so confident in her own identity that she projected her values onto Lefty, her brother, by playing “matchmaker” (30). She is self assured because she knows who she is and she fits into the rural village