Middlesex

Perhaps even more important than the city of Detroit is the country in which it’s located: The idea of America, what it represents, is central to the Stephanides family’s story. Although Desdemona never becomes entirely comfortable in her newly adopted homeland, the rest of the family understands that the US—while never quite living up to its promises—offers an opportunity. For example, Cal’s parents, as first-generation Americans, invest in the trappings of what it means to be American, as Cal wryly observes: “Behold my parents’ bedroom: furnished entirely in Early American reproductions, it offers them connection (at discount prices) with the country’s founding myths” (235). Thus, Milton and Tessie surround themselves with cherrywood furniture, of the kind that George Washington once would have chopped down, as well as a “‘Monticello’ dresser,” which links them to Jefferson (235). Such is the power of the dream of freedom and equality that it can be rendered in a bedroom set.

In addition, America signifies the experience of what it means to be an outsider. Until Cal arrives at private school, he has no idea that he’s necessarily much different from any other student. However, the stratification based on class and race ensnares him and his cohort in its web: “Until we came to Baker & Inglis my friends and I had always felt completely American. But now the Bracelets’ upturned noses suggested that there was another America to which we could never gain admittance” (298). Thus, America is both the proverbial land of opportunity and a place of exclusion, depending on who you are.

Hence, the place where Cal grows up and the place from which Cal himself must escape in order to fully embrace his identity are one and the same—the US, in which the dreams of immigrants intersect with their limitations: “Middlesex [the house] was now almost seventy years old. [But] it was still the beacon it was intended to be” (529). In addition, it’s a place where Cal can fully inhabit his life, his dreams, and his desires: It’s “a place designed for a new type of human being, who would inhabit a new world” (529). Thus, the vision of what America could be becomes the dream Cal brings vividly to life.

In contrast to the promise of America, as Cal renders it, Greece represents the past, a place where antiquated traditions and old-fashioned superstitions reign. This is, of course, a simplistic interpretation of the land of his grandparents’ origins; he also waxes poetic about the brilliance and beauty of Smyrna, for example. However, Greece is the place that becomes a point of contention between the past and the present. Although the narrator is clearly invested in the long tradition of Greek literature and history, he’s also firmly in favor of the immigrant experience, at least how it pertains to identity and choice.

Desdemona, though, upholds her traditions, memories, and histories as a bulwark against the disorienting experience of the new world. She keeps her silkworm box in a hidden place, protecting it from the incursions of another culture. It becomes the symbol of all that she has been forced to leave behind. As she tells her class of eager participants at the Islamic cultural center, “To make good silk […] you have to be pure” (148). This is one notion that Desdemona keeps despite her youthful decisions and long journey: She’s unrelentingly committed to the purity of the ideas and traditions that she carries with her from the old world to the new.

When she discovers that her choices might influence future generations, she changes her relationship with Lefty, her one connection to that former life. After Lefty dies, she takes to her bed, in the manner of her ancestors, remaining in mourning for the rest of her life. When Cal finally comes home after leaving Callie behind and becoming something new, he finds her old silkworm box, which holds the silver spoon that predicted his fate: “The [silkworm] box was now so stuffed with mementos it wouldn’t shut” (523). Like the contents of his story and the precursor to his history, this is a Pandora’s box that won’t remain closed. The truth, with all its horrors and joys, will come bursting out.