Middlesex+Book+4+journal+12


 * __Middlesex: Go West Young Man, and Gender Dysphoria in San Francisco__**

Write a letter to a friend that you've just learned was a hermaphrodite. what would you want them to know? How would you feel towards them? Dear "Insert Name," I just heard the news and i just wanted to let you know that i am here for you. whatever you decide, i will stick by you til the end. if you need a shoulder to cry on, i'm your girl, or if you just need to beat someone up, I'll be your lookout. i hope you can trust me enough to let me know what all you've been going through, but i'm not going to pry. i just wanted to make sure you knew that i will always be here, no matter what gender you decide to be. Love, Savannah

__5. My Reaction__
 * Tessie's connection to Cal
 * 463, "My mother used to say that the umbilical cord attaching her to her children had never been completely cut. as soon as Dr. Philobosian had severed the chord of flesh, another, spiritual connection had grown up in its place"
 * i think that this idea is really interesting. it challenges science by connecting it to something spiritual. i like to believe that this is possible, that people can be so close to another person that they have a connection deeper than what science can explain. perhaps i am just being a romantic, but i really likes this metaphor
 * i was confused as to when Tessie felt the chord/connection end and what Cal was experiencing (this happened later in the novel)
 * Cal's haircut 445
 * first i thought it was funny how Eugenides referenced it to a break up because i have heard that. i though that this was an interesting connection to the Object, i am not sure what i think exactly but i think that it is worth discussing.
 * second i think it highlights Cal commitment to proceeding as a man in society. it shows character growth because he can no longer hide behind his hair.
 * it is also interesting to look at in reference to Desdemona's hair. here Cal chooses to cut his hair, and thus his transformation is successful, as opposed to Desdemona who never truly Americanized. Both hair cuts occurred at a point in their life where they experienced change and a fresh start, which loosely connects to my first point.
 * Dr. Luce and Cal's Parents 464-5
 * finally the parents are angry at him and see him for what he is.
 * this scene, i think, shows that Cal's parents would have been more accepting as he thought.
 * Bathrooms and Stereotypes 451-2
 * i had the same stereotype that is portrayed in Middlesex, but my brother-in-law, who ran a restaurant and had to clean up both bathrooms at some point, insisted that women's bathrooms are actually worse off than mens'. if this is true i think it demonstrates how Eugenides has to use gender stereotypes to be able to write in the different gendered voices.

__Ionesco and the Theater of the Absurd 454__ Ionesco was a playwright for the Theater of the Absurd. it has a very interesting range of ideologies present, one being existentialism and another that if God did not exist then society would degrade into chaos. Cal learnt about this on the road, demonstrating how he is learning more radical things, as Chapter Eleven learned theologies when he went away. learning these allow Cal to grow up and develop his own mind; this is a start, it continues when he lives with Zora later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugène_Ionesco http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Absurd

__Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground 454__ Cal learns about them from Scheer, the homosexual who gives him a lift, Andy Warhol was a homosexual who helped start the american rock band the Velvet Underground. if i would have know this before i may have had some more of an inkling as to what would later happen. i could not find much about what the band represented but i think it was diverse messages/lyrics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velvet_Underground http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#Personal_life