The Chronotope of Immigration in Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides‟ Middlesex can be ascribed to many genres, one of which is the novel of immigration. Mikhail Bakhtin has suggested that each genre, indeed any literary motif, can be defined by its own chronotope, literally “time space,” “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature.” The essay discusses the chronotope of immigration in Middlesex, and looks at how four specific intersections of time and space, embodied by the four houses inhabited by the Stephanides family, contribute to the unfolding of this particular immigration saga. The four houses can thus be seen to represent the key elements of this novel‟s instance of a chronotope of immigration, which brings up concepts such as assimilation, hybridity and “third space.” The essay also examines the relations of central characters to time, space and each other; the upstairs/downstairs and inside/outside dichotomies within each house providing interesting keys to inter-gender and inter-generational alienation within this chronotope of immigration