The Theme Of Nature And Nurture In Middlesex

Nature vs. Nurture In the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the main character Callie is a male who was raised as a female for the first sixteen years of his life. Due to his genetic history it created a mutation of his genes that caused 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which delays the transformation or change of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone.This means that Cal was born with both male and female genes which is better known as a hermaphrodite. This coming of age novel explores the life of Callie and his transition to Cal, the theme found in the story is nature vs. nurture. Eugenides addresses the theme multiple times in the book, in the story there are different incidents of Cal questioning his sexuality/gender. Depending on whether

In the novel Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides explores the theme of nature vs. nurture by explaining the life of a boy named Cal however Eugendies believes no matter the nurture, nature prevails which is what helped him identify his gender. In the beginning of the novel Cal states “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in a emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” (Book One, Chapter One). This underline humor began the question of nature vs. nurture in the story, readers questioned how and what made him transform. Eugenides used allusion to help his nature vs. nurture theme when he wrote “Sing now, O Muse, of the recessive mutation on my fifth chromosome! Sing how it bloomed two and a half centuries ago on the slopes of Mount Olympus, while the goats bleated and the olives dropped. Sing how it passed down through nine generations, gathering invisibly within the polluted pool of the Stephanides family.” (Book One Chapter One). He speaks of his genetic mutation as a humorous tone, in “Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society” written by Olivia Banner, she agrees that people’s nature is their true self despite their