Jeffrey Eugenides Grand Trunk Station

Middlesex, the enticing and controversial epic of a young hermaphrodite’s journey toward self-discovery by Pulitzer Prize winning author Jeffrey Eugenides, adopts Grand Trunk Station in Detroit as the metaphorical center of the Stephanides families evolution and demonstrates how modernization and conformity can transform, be it for better or for worse. Grand Trunk Station serves as the vital first impression made upon Desdemona and Lefty Stephanides of Detroit and signifies how culture and history can be passed down to form something or someone’s identity. During the early twentieth century, Grand Trunk Station was situated in the heart of Detroit, a booming city of manufacture and societal advancements. Following a gruelling journey, Desdemona and Lefty arrive off their train in the Grand Trunk Station, instantaneously enamoured by its beauty. Lefty, “who’d been observing all the ways Greece had been handed down to America, arrived now at where the transmission stopped. In

When Cal’s grandparents arrive in Detroit, the station is a brilliant symbol of advancement and modernization. Later in 1975, the station was hardly in use, “the once-opulent terminal was now only a shell” (Eugenides 502). Over time, Grand Trunk Station lost relevance in society, and its identity was no longer a symbol of pride and development. During conversation with Desdemona at the end of the novel, Cal realizes how time has played such an influential part of the formation of his identity. Desdemona questions what had happened to Calliope, whom she remembers being a girl, and Cal simply responds “I grew up” (Eugenides 526). There are many factors into how one builds their own persona, including history and conformity. However, as Cal realizes at the end of the novel, time and simply growing up is what makes someone who they