Inner Conflicts in Calliope’s Intersexuality in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex

This study aims at finding the inner conflicts, including the causes and the resolutions to the conflicts, experienced by the main character in the novel Middlesex written by Jeffrey Eugenides. Middlesex is an epic novel written in memoir mixed autobiography about an intersexual person of Greek decent. This issue has become important, especially in sexual movement, for surgical or hormonal alteration is usually taken to create more socially acceptable sex characteristics without having a thorough counceling to the intersexual person. Using objective criticism as the tool of the analysis, the writer analyzes the novel through its intrinsic elements. Nevertheless, analyzing a novel using intrinsic elements cannot be entirely separated from its extrinsic elements. Therefore, the writer includes the novel’s extrinsic elements whenever he needs to support his analysis. On gender and sexualities, the writer frames his analysis within social constructionist theory, specifically that of Judith Butler on gender as performance