Diasporic Mediations in Eugenides’ Middlesex

Abstract

The main objective of this research work is to explore the diasporic mediations in Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex. Due to some assimilated traits and some non-assimilated traits, the Greek-American face problem of ambivalent identity in the novel Middlesex. Eugenides employs the hermaphrodite protagonist and many Greek mythical allusions along with the vivid description of many assimilated and non-assimilated traits in different generations of the Greek-American immigrants to show the hybrid identity of Greek-American Immigrants. In this multigenerational novel, the Greek-American immigrants neither can completely assimilate in the American culture nor can completely follow the Greek culture, and they suffer from identity ambivalence. Thus, the Greek-American writer Jeffrey Eugenides exposes the identity ambivalence of the Greek-American diasporas in his novel Middlesex. The researcher analyzes that hybridity of identity by using the diaspora and ethnic identity theory of Homi K. Bhabha, R. Radhakrishnan, Salman Rushdie, Robert Young, William Safran , Stuart Hall and so on