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    A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex
    A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex
    A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex
    Ebook36 pages22 minutes

    A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's "Middlesex," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 21, 2015
    ISBN9781535828574
    A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex

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      A Study Guide for Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex - Gale

      1

      Middlesex

      Jeffrey Eugenides

      2002

      Introduction

      Jeffrey Eugenides's novel Middlesex (2002) focuses on the chronicle of forty-one-year-old, hermaphroditic Calliope Stephanides, which presents her multigenerational Greek-American family and her struggle to establish a clear sense of self. After opening with the story of her grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, and their subsequent union, Cal traces the damaged gene that this brother and sister passed down through the generations to Cal, which causes her gender irregularity.

      Cal weaves together the story of her grandparents and their descendents with her own, comparing the problems they faced in their efforts to reconcile their Greek heritage with their adopted U.S. culture to Cal's attempts to find balance between her female and male halves. She sets her epic story, which moves from 1922 to 2001, against a historical backdrop of change, from the Turkish invasion of Greece, through Prohibition, the Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. As her family gradually adapts to their new world, Cal is also able to find a way to accept the duality of her own experience. Eugenides's ability to find the humor as well as the tragedy in their stories creates a compelling work that celebrates difference as well as community.

      To avoid confusion, the narrator and main character in Middlesex is referred to here as Cal and the pronoun she.

      Author Biography

      Jeffrey Eugenides was born in the affluent Detroit suburb, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to Constantine and Wanda Eugenides on March 8, 1960. Despite the family's Greek heritage, his parents wanted to assimilate mainstream American society. He was so influenced by the world of his childhood that his first two novels are set there. His Greek parents' assimilation serves as part of the backdrop for Middlesex (2002).

      Eugenides attended and graduated from the prestigious University Liggett School, in Grosse Pointe. After high school, he attended Brown University, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1983. He continued his education at Stanford University where he received his master's degree in creative writing in 1986.

      Until his first novel, The Virgin Suicides, was published in 1993, Eugenides worked at various jobs such as taking photos and writing for Yachtsman magazine, bussing tables

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