Directions to the Inside
I think maybe all of the gender theory I have been reading for another class has gotten to me because I found myself increasingly frustrated with Cal’s characterization of gender and sex. I also, however, don’t have a solution for the ways in which society in general is stuck in the binary of male or female, heterosexual or homosexual. It is really fascinating to think about the limitations in language around sexuality and gender because of the social constructions of gender and language that exist in society at large. My frustration is not a criticism of Cal’s character or of the novel, but rather a general frustration with the realization that such a sweeping subject can be, at its roots, so limited.
Rather than get into a lengthy discussion of gender roles and stereotypes (I think that will be better for class discussion) I want to write a little about the power relations at play in Calliope’s middle school years. I found this part of Book Three really interesting and really telling about the ways that power structures form among adolescents. Cal’s discussion of the social hierarchies of the “Charm Bracelets” the “Kilt Pins” and the “Ethnics,” the group Cal is a part of (299-302).
In class last week I briefly mentioned what a nightmarish place the girls locker room can be, so I was pleased to see that the book (stemming from shame as a major theme in the novel) used this setting to discuss how social strata can be understood in the “wildnerness” of pubescent girlhood. Cal comments on the way that the Charm Bracelets are essentially a group of clones who thrive on their shared materialism and wealth. Even this “superior” group of girls, though, as Cal points out was an illusion, a group who latched on to a created identity: “Yes, that was the secret wish of the Charm Bracelets and their parents, to be not Midwesterners but Eaterners, to affect their dress and lockjaw speech, to summer in Martha’s Vineyard, to say ‘back East’ instead of ‘out East,’ as though their time in Michigan represented only a brief sojourn away from home” (300). This points to a Foucaultian notion of power relations, I think, in the way that the apparent “dominant” group, is sparking the desire for a resistance to becoming like “them” in people like Cal. The larger social group coexists with a subversive group, one that doesn’t represent the “All-American” that has been created, and, as Cal points out, seems to mean something different than the good old “American Dream.”
Cal briefly discusses the larger group of Kilt Pins, mostly composed of girls who are in a sort of in-between place. They are the shyer or less “attractive” girls. I loved, though, Cal’s description of her and her small group of friends, primarily for the fact that he doesn’t have to do much more than provide a list of names to express the common trait. They are all the outsiders, the “foriegners,” even though all of them were born in America, many of them it seems are like Cal, second generation “foreigners.” Here, Cal gets away from the question of gender identity and social construction of those norms, and questions what exactly is accepted as an American. She discusses: “…Ethnic girls we were called, but then who wasn’t, when you got right down to it? Weren’t the Charm Bracelets every bit as ethnic? Weren’t they as full of strange rituals and food? Of tribal speech?…Until we came to Baker & Inglis my friends and I had always felt completely American. But now the Bracelets’ upturned noses suggested there was another America to which we could never gain admittance. ” (302). I love this passage because it speaks to an awareness of the power relations that exist in all spheres of society, even in those social spheres of very young people, but I also love this passage because it points to Cal’s and the Stephanides’ perpetual “otherness.” I’m really interested in the way the theme of being on the outside pervades the novel, because I think it points to a question that is important to consider when talking about such heavily socially influenced ideas such as race, gender, identity, etc.; where is the inside and can one ever really exist within it?
I don’t think that the “inside” or the perfect norm is a place or identity that can be reached. It’s too perfect, or too ideal to become “reality.” It’s important to think about, I think, because it seems that many take for granted the “norm” as a perfectly acceptable, tangible idea, when, if asked to define the norm, I think many would find themselves struggling to come up with an answer.
I’m interested to hear other takes about the way that power relations are established by this pervasive notion of a norm that seems unreachable. It’s such an interesting topic and there are so many instances of it within Middlesex. I’m really excited to discuss the second half of the book!
Tags: Foucault, Identity, Middlesex, Power-Relations
