Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Moodle Assignment 5

Jeffrey Eugenides wrote Middlesex, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that includes themes
of American assimilation, attaining individualism, and a break from traditional gender
stereotypes
...
Hector St
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While the authors were separated by two centuries, each expressed similar ideals
and concerns
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The American ideals expressed in Middlesex would not have the same impact upon the
reader were it not for Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer, written 220 years prior
...
Referring to the “enlightened Englishman,” Crevecoeur wrote, “He must
greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must
necessarily feel a share of national pride
...
His writing was pioneering and introduced the idea of American pride
through literature
...

The American dream is revisited in Middlesex, as the story describes the Stephanides
family’s assimilation and efforts to transform into the typical American family
...
Desdemona and Lefty’s cousin, Lina, is an example of a Greek
immigrant who grew accustomed to America and eventually chased after the “American dream,”
dressing in the traditional 1920’s “flapper girl” style
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, the radio she spent hours
each day listening to, wearing earphones and manipulating the dial
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Moodle Assignment 5

Later on, Desdemona and Lefty’s son, Milton, started a family and a restaurant chain,
purchased a Detroit car, a black Cadillac, and was drawn into suburban life by purchasing a
home in Grosse Point
...
“Not a spaceship
then, but close: a 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood, as intergalactic a car as Detroit ever produced,” she
remembered
...

However, the American dream and moderate standard of living did not come without a
cost
...
“I shudder when I recollect that the birds had already picked out his eyes, his cheek bones
were bare; his arms had been attacked in several places, and his body seemed covered with a
multitude of wounds,” he wrote
...

Similarly, Eugenides depicted the riots in Detroit, and the burning down of the diner
...

Both the scene of the slave left hanging in a tree and the scene of the riots are quite a contrast to
the original picture of American pride painted by each author
...
Although Letters from an American Farmer was
written in 1782, Crevecoeur’s writing was revolutionary and addressed topics that were revisited
in Middlesex, such as the American idealism and the unfortunate presence of racism in the
country
...
Similarly, both authors acknowledge the negative aspects of American
assimilation such as slavery, racism, and the riots in Detroit
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