Middlesex Essay

Hermaphrodites and Society

Individuals are given the gift of life when they are born into this world. Many agree that everyone is blessed and should not take their lives for granted. To be truly alive, individuals must be overjoyed and pursue happiness. However, others would describe their lives as a joke. To be precise, many would be ashamed of who they are. A very strong example of an ashamed soul would be Calliope, the main protagonist of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. In the story, Eugenides tells the tale of Callie, who is supposedly a monster because she is a hermaphrodite. Being a hermaphrodite indicates that someone has the sex organs associated with both genders. By definition, Callie is an abnormal freak. Eugenides employs literary devices, such as tone, imagery, and personification, to express Callie’s shame and humiliation of being herself. Eugenides employs imagery to transport readers into Callie’s shoes and understand her shame of being a hermaphrodite. Callie describes herself as “being surrounded by illuminating faces bent over books, her hair covering the definition of herself.” Normal individuals surround Callie, and she abruptly conceals the word monster to prevent anyone from realizing her true identity. In Callie’s point of view, normal individuals surround her, and she is in the center covering a secret that could ultimately ruin her reputation as a human. Callie is so frightened of being exposed to the world as a true monster. Callie makes a past reference of how she had experienced monster before. Callie addresses that “she was not looking at it in her bathroom stall.” She has the affirmation that someone had already known her as a monster, but she was too afraid to agree. Now, however, Callie is reminded of her past, and sadly acquaints past and present to reach the conclusion the she is indeed a monster. Callie also refers to herself as a “lumbering, shaggy creature pausing at the edge of the woods, as a humped