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ANA-BLANCA CIOCOI-POP
Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu
Abstract
As a result of his Greek cultural heritage and his take on post-modern social and spiritual iconoclasm, Jeffrey Eugenides resorts in his works to what we would label “constructive skepticism”, thereby annihilating two of the major narratives we usually rely on in shaping our sense of stability and continuity: identity and gender. In so doing, he does not aim to jettison basic values and norms of conduct, but rather to increase human awareness of the painful frailty of concepts that we usually take for granted in our quest for self-determination. The present study attempts to uncover major instances of constructive skepticism in Eugenides’ novels The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex.
Keywords: Jeffrey Eugenides, identity, gender, suicide, deconstruction, skepticism, Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides
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