Deconstructing “The Norm”
So sorry for the late post!! Finals time is starting to take over!
I am absolutely loving Middlesex. I think it’s amazing that Eugenides is able to take such a powerful taboo right from the very beginning and make us (well at least me) root for the characters involved. Lefty and Desdemona’s relationship has all the qualities of a traditional romance, except for the fact that they just happen to be brother and sister. In Books 1 and 2, my favorite section of the text is when the two are on board the Giulia and deconstruct their identities internally in order to construct a socially acceptable relationship just in time for their arrival in America.
Eugenides does an excellent job of pulling the reader into how passionate and deeply affectionate the relationship between Lefty and Desdemona is. I think the appearance of the incest taboo was more easily digestible for me because there wasn’t a victim as a result of it. Unlike in Lolita, the taboo is simply an obstacle in the way of a truly remarkable love story. I wouldn’t be such a fan of the brother-sister relationship if, for example, Lefty had manipulated or abused Desdemona into submission. In fact, Eugenides makes it a point to tell us that both individuals struggle immensely with their emotional and physical attractions to one another.
I think it’s important to note that no one can tell Lefty and Desdemona are brother and sister. While their guilt makes them feel as though everyone knows their secret immediately upon looking at them, the reality of the situation is that the outside world perceives them as strangers who fall in love aboard a ship to America. The people aboard the Giulia are so unaware of the siblings’ relationship that they go so far as to criticize Desdemona as too low of birth to marry such a high class man as Lefty (72).
The freedom available in their new identities isn’t as liberating as one might immediately assume. In fact, their awareness of their participation in the performativity that Foucault suggests we all participate in, seems to weigh on each, more heavily it seems on Desdemona, as a betrayal of “true” self. Lefty seems more willing to abandon his past identity in order to stay with Desdemona and, I think, in order to escape some of his internal conflict about his feelings.
I love the way their performance aboard ship is described because it speaks a lot to the notions Foucault has about subjectivity and identity formation. There is no set “self” but rather a moldable and constantly performing notion of self that allows for incredible agency in one’s own life and in terms of fluidity within the power structures of society. A passage that I liked in particular discusses the way that the “truth” really comes to be:
“He wrapped a ratty blanket over his shoulders like an opera cape. Aware that whatever happened now would become the truth, that whatever her seemed to be would become what he was–already an American, in other words–he waited for Desdemona to come up on deck” (73).
Lefty’s blanket being described as an “opera cape” alludes to the performative nature of identity formation. The fact that the agency in identity formation or in truth formation is something inherently American, speaks to the Western notion of the “self” that is much more in favor of the individual existing independent of all other elements of environment (heritage, tradition, etc.). Eugenides is spot-on with just this breif statement, saying so much about the ways in which we develop identities in order to serve a certain purpose, but then, in some way or another, they become the “truth” of who we are.
It is important to note that Lefty and Desdemona use what seems on the surface as incredible agency and freedom to choose an identity as a way of dissociating from their guilt about their “unnatural” relationship. The purpose of their performance is revealed here: ” They passed the voyage playing out this imaginary flirtation and, little by little, they began to believe it. They fabricated memories, improvised fate. (Why did they do it? Why did they go to all that trouble? Couldn’t they have said they were already engaged? Or that their marriage had been arranged years earlier? Yes, of course they could have. But it wasn’t the other travelers they were trying to fool; it was themselves)” (73).
It is evident that Middlesex is tackling a much larger issue than just portraying the drama of one family. This novel is tackling the ways in which taboos are assumed to be non-normative, which insists that a “true” norm exists. I’m interested to see the ways in which the novel continues to toy with and break down concepts of “the norm” as this beautifully written and intensely gripping story continues.
Tags: Foucault, Identity, incest, Middlesex, Social Constructionist, taboos
