39 epic meaning” CALLIOPE: The Goddess of Eloquence and Poetry. Similar to
Calliope in Greek mythology, the main character is also beautiful. The beauty of Calliope as the main character of the story is presented in the passage below:
The beauty I possessed as a baby only increased as I grew into a girl. It was no surprise why Clementine Stark had wanted to practice kissing with me.
Everyone wanted to. Elderly waitresses bent close to take my order. Red- faced boys appeared at my desk, stammering, “Y-y-you dropped your eraser.”
Even Tessie, angry about something, would look down at me —at my
Cleopatra eyes —and forget what she was mad about. Eugenides 278
Those beauty turns to be an irony because Calliope, who is a beautiful girl, in
this story transforms herself into a man. Calliope in the end decides to change her appearance as a man and even her name. Calliope is her name as a woman or Callie
as her nick name . However, she changes her name into „Cal’ when she decides to be a
man. “My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most
recent driver’s license from the Federal Republic of Germany records my first name simply as Cal
” Eugenides 3. In addition, her transformation is also stated clearly in the first paragraph of the novel as
“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 an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974” Eugenides 3.
3. Hermaphroditus
a. As the Representative of the Main Character
In the main character ’s attempts to find her real identity, she works in a club
named 69ers where unique people are employed to be presented in front of a crowd
40 just like a circus. The significance is that the main character in this club acts as the
god of Hermaphroditus, i t can be seen on the club’s printed sign as below.
Fig.8 69ers Printed Sign, Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002. Still as a part of the show in the 69ners club, Calliope performs naked in the giant
pool where there are many pin holes in it. Thus, the guest must pay a particular amount of money to see her swimming naked in that pool. The author of Middlesex
gives details explanation of how Calliope performs, starts from the master of ceremony who introduces her “Once upon a time in ancient Greece, there was an
enchanted pool. This pool was sacred to Salmacis, the water nymph. And one day Hermaphroditus, a beautiful boy, went swimming there” Eugenides 490. That is a
sign for Calliope to lowered his feet into the pool, after that the narration continues “Salmacis looked upon the handsome boy and her lust was kindled. She swam nearer
41 to get a closer look” Eugenides 490. Calliope lower her body to the pool slowly
inch by inch and some costumer begin to watch from peepholes. “The water nymph tried to control herself. But the boy’s beauty was too much
for her. Looking was not enough. Salmacis swam nearer and nearer. And then, overpowered by desire, she caught the boy from behind, wrapping her arms
around him” Eugenides 490 Calliope starts kicking her legs and churning up the water to make costumers hard to
see. The master of ceremony continues. “Hermaphroditus struggled to free himself from the tenacious grip of the
water nymph, ladies and gentlemen. But Salmacis was too strong. So unbridled was her lust that the two became one. Their bodies fused, male into
female, female into male. Behold the god Hermaphroditus”490-491 That is the time when Calliope is fully exposed and swims in the pool.
In addition, Jeffrey Eugenides when he is in the Oprah ’s show also explains
briefly about the story of Hermaphroditus based on his point of view. The story of Hermaphroditus, the beautiful son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is
one I retell, in modern guise, in two different sections of the book. The nymph Salmacis fell in love with Hermaphroditus when he took a swim in her
designated pool one day. He rebuffed her advances, but she clung to him, pleading with the gods to keep the two of them from ever parting. Her prayers
were answered. Hermaphroditus and Salmacis were physically fused into one being. QA With Jeffery Eugenides.
b. The Pool of Change
