Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Middlesex, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Rebirth vs. Continuity
Ancestry, Inheritance, and Fate
False Binaries
Migration, Ethnicity, and the American Dream
Secrets
Summary
Analysis
Thirteen days after his death, Jimmy Zizmo’s funeral takes place. The police were never able to find his body, but chose to accept Lefty’s explanation that Zizmo had been ice fishing and was possibly drunk. An open casket containing only a framed photo of Zizmo along with his wedding crown is displayed in the house for mourners to view. Despite not having liked her husband at all, Sourmelina sinks into an intense grief. She curses Zizmo for leaving her as a single mother and widow. Father Stylianopoulos conducts the first part of the funeral service in the house, before the immediate family are driven to church in a limousine that Lefty has rented.
Sourmelina may not have been in love with Jimmy, but perhaps over the course of their marriage she came to feel a sort of appreciation and respect for him. Even if this isn’t true, back during this era when a person married, they would expect to remain married for the rest of their lives, since divorce was socially taboo. Perhaps the intensity of Sourmelina’s grief is simply due to the shock of realizing this will not be the case.
Themes
As is traditional, a man stays behind at the house while the church part of the service takes place, guarding the door so that Zizmo’s spirit cannot reenter the house. After the church service, the casket is put to one side, in case Zizmo’s body turns up in the spring, once the ice thaws. According to Orthodox belief, the soul of a dead person does not go straight to heaven, but rather stays for a while on Earth to haunt the living. Forty days after the initial funeral service, another service is held, at which point Zizmo’s spirit is thought to leave earth for heaven. During this service, Sourmelina changes into a bright orange dress, violating the norm that widows should wear black for the rest of their lives. Desdemona is horrified.
A connection emerges here between the Greek Orthodox tradition of preventing a dead person’s spirit from reentering the house and the family’s decision to put the casket to one side in case Zizmo’s body shows up in the spring. Even as they mourn Zizmo, there are multiple senses in which he might not truly be gone.
Themes
After the funeral rites for Zizmo are completed, both Milton and Theodora are baptized. Desdemona asks Sourmelina how it is possible to prevent oneself from getting pregnant again; Lina replies that women can’t get pregnant while they are breastfeeding, but beyond this, the only way is to not have sex. Desdemona doesn’t want to have sex at the moment anyway, much to Lefty’s annoyance. Lefty has what Cal describes as the all-too-common male experience of feeling jealous of his own baby. Until this point, Lefty and Desdemona’s relationship had been “unusually close and egalitarian” for the time. However, after the birth of Milton, Lefty becomes increasingly conservative and demanding.
Although there are certain things that make Lefty and Desdemona’s relationship unusual—the main one of which is, of course, the fact that they are brother and sister—in other ways they are entirely typical. In particular, this manifests as Lefty betraying a stereotypical male selfishness and resentment surrounding the birth of his child.
Themes
During this time Lefty also goes in search of a new job. He spends his spare time translating Ancient Greek literature into English, but cannot find work as a translator or teacher. Eventually, he has an idea: he sets up a speakeasy called the Zebra Room in the basement of his house, named after a zebra skin Zizmo claimed to have brought over from Africa. He gets the alcohol from the same connections he used in his and Zizmo’s bootlegging days, and teaches himself to be a barman. Upstairs, Desdemona and Sourmelina share the duties of raising their two children. Sourmelina is uninterested in babies; her caring talents are much better suited to teenagers.
Although I some ways the Stephanides-Zizmo family adheres to strict gender roles, the scene described here is also nontraditional. With three adults left in the house, the labor of working and raising the children is spread out in a different way than it would have been with just two.
Themes
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Milton and Theodora are inseparable until Milton turns four, at which point he abandons his cousin to play with the local boys instead. By this point, Theodora doesn’t care, because Lefty and Desdemona’s extremely infrequent sexual encounters have led to the birth of another cousin, Zoë, whom Cal calls Aunt Zo. Desdemona once again spends her pregnancy petrified that the baby will be deformed. Yet when Zoë is born on April 27, 1928, she is perfectly healthy. Theodora is obsessed with Zoë and loves pretending to be her mother. With so many children in the house, Sourmelina and Theodora move to a new apartment right next door.
Because the adults of the family are something of a parenting triad, Theodora, Milton, and Zoë grow up somewhat more like siblings than cousins. Of course, the reader knows from the beginning of the novel that Milton and Theodora (Tessie) are Cal’s parents. In a less direct way, the motif of incest between family members recurs in the second generation of the Stephanides family.
Themes
The financial crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression takes a toll on Lefty’s speakeasy. Later, when Callie is a child, Desdemona will tell her stories about the horrors of the Depression. One night, Lefty removes his two sleeping children from the bed he shares with Desdemona and attempts to initiate sex. Desdemona refuses, which prompts an argument, and Lefty ends up telling Desdemona that she has to find a job. The next day, Sourmelina and Desdemona search through the listings until they find a mysterious post advertising for a position as a “silk worker.” Nervously, Desdemona sets off, handing the address to the conductor on the streetcar as she doesn’t yet really speak English.
Lefty’s anger at Desdemona seems to originate in the idea that if she refuses to have sex with him (i.e., perform the prescribed duties of a wife) then she must work outside the home (i.e., the typical duty of a husband). Of course, economic pressure is also a factor—during the Depression, many women sought work in order to supplement their family’s falling or nonexistent income. However, they tended to face increased sexist discrimination in the workforce, which was justified by the lack of jobs.
Themes
On the journey, Desdemona feels annoyed with Lefty, whose claim that silk isn’t made in Detroit turns out to have been false. She thinks that if her silkworm cocoons hadn’t been seized at Ellis Island, she could have set up a cocoonery in her backyard. She passes poor, wretched-looking people holding signs on the street and is shocked, reminded of the refugees back in Smyrna. When the streetcar reaches Hastings Street, the address from the ad, Desdemona is shocked: it is in “the Black Bottom ghetto.” Ever since black people began arriving in Detroit in large numbers, this is where they have been confined. When the conductor tells Desdemona they’ve reach her destination, she is stunned, yet still gets out.
Although Desdemona’s attitudes regarding race have not yet been explicitly articulated, it is clear that she wants to maintain her distance from the black neighborhood of the city. A European immigrant like Desdemona may well have had little to no interaction with black people before, and this—combined with the prevalence of racist ideologies both in Greece and the U.S.—stokes powerful prejudice.
Themes
Walking nervously, Desdemona passes children playing, a homeless man, a street artist, and a barbershop. A woman stops to ask if she is lost, and is confused when Desdemona claims she is looking for the silk factory. When Desdemona shows her the address, she points to a building across the street. Two young black men stand outside; to Desdemona’s total surprise, they are wearing fezzes. When she approaches the men with the address, they tell her to go around the back of the building. There, she encounters black women wearing white chadors and headscarves. Desdemona realizes that the building is a mosque.
While Desdemona initially assumes that Black Bottom will be a place totally alien and unfamiliar to her, the presence of the mosque is a sign of familiarity. Desdemona comes from a part of the world where Muslim and Christian people live together, and has spent much of her life under Muslim Ottoman rule. Although she is not Muslim herself, the mosque nonetheless reminds her of her homeland.
Themes
One of the women introduces herself as Sister Wanda, and asks if Desdemona has come regarding the job. In halting English, Desdemona lists her experience as a silk worker. Suspiciously, Sister Wanda asks about Desdemona’s ethnicity, and isn’t happy to hear that she is Greek. However, her attitude changes when she hears that Desdemona immigrated from Turkey, as it’s a Muslim country. Sister Wanda explains that Minister Fard has taught them about the importance of self-reliance, and cautioned against depending on white people. Reluctantly, Desdemona replies that Turkish and Greek people are “same same.”
Desdemona’s claim to be basically the same as a Turkish person would have been seen as scandalous and heretical if anyone from her own community heard it. However, in the midst of her desperation to get a job (and possibly also her excitement at the prospect of working with silk again), she puts these concerns aside. This incident indicates that ethnic boundaries are less strict and meaningful as people make them out to be.
Themes
Sister Wanda takes Desdemona through the mosque, explaining that she should never go through the curtain to the main temple, and that she should start covering her hair. Cal quotes from two books about black Muslims in America, explaining that in 1930, a mysterious “peddler” began spreading messages among the black community of Detroit. This was the beginning of the Nation of Islam. The peddler went by various names, from Mr. Farrad Mohammad to Wallace Ford to Wardell Fard. There was uncertainty over his racial identity and where he came from. Sister Wanda explains that Minister Fard has advised them to start selling silk from the mosque. She opens a door to reveal a room in which 23 women are at work sewing clothes.
As much as Desdemona’s involvement with the Nation of Islam might seem far-fetched, the Nation of Islam itself was very real, and was indeed founded in Detroit by a mysterious man who went by the names listed in this passage. Moreover, as the book illustrates, Fard encouraged his followers to get involved in silk production—a luxury industry that is at odds with the desperate conditions of the Great Depression.
Themes
Sister Wanda then shows Desdemona a wooden box full of dirt, explaining that they ordered silkworms “from a company.” Desdemona examines one of the worms, which is almost dead, and speaks to it softly in Greek. Sister Wanda turns to the women and explains that Desdemona is going to teach them how to make silk. The women all turn to her, and Desdemona says that in order to “make good silk […] you have to be pure.”
Desdemona’s reiteration of her mother’s words of advice highlights how wisdom can be transposed across vastly different cultural contexts. The black Muslim women Desdemona is speaking to may share little in common with Euphrosyne Stephanides, but they do share her insistence on the importance of purity.
Themes
