Middlesex+(252-270)

Definitions: Sisyphean: The word sisyphean means endless and unavailing, as labor or a task. Pointless and/or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean. The word stems from Sisyphus, a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down and have to repeat this process for all eternity. Sisyphus is found in both Greek and Roman mythology. []

Karaghiozis-Karaghiozis is a shadow puppet and ficitional character in Greek folklore. He is a poor, hunch-backed Greek. His right hand is always depicted long, his clothes are ragged and patched and his feet are always bare. He lives with his wife and three sons during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Because of his poverty, Karaghiozis uses mischievous and crude ways to find money and feed his family. []

7. The circles motif again appears in this chapter with Lefty's deterioration. Towards the end of his life, he begins to relive his life in reverse. At first he is in 1968 while the rest of the world is experiencing the events of 1969. However, soon he stops referencing Callie because to him, she has never been born. He travels back to the 40's re-encountering his gambling problem and imagining that he is still running the Zebra Room. In his mind he continues to grow younger and the rest of the world grows older. His mind returns to the days of Jimmy Zizmo and Prohibition and soon he no longer recognizes Desdemona as his wife, but as his sister. Eventually he begins cooing like a baby and soiling himself and then passes away. His life has come full circle. He reaches a certain point and then he retraces his past experiences and then passes away. Life is one big circle, from cradle to grave.

5. I think it's interesting that by the age of 7, there are indications that there is something different about Callie/Cal. Her very real feelings for Clementine and the kissing lessons and the sexual encounter in the bathhouse are certainly not stereotypical of most seven-year-old females. Cal says that "From the beginning I was aware that there was something improper about the way I felt about Clementine Stark, something I shouldn't tell my mother, but I wouldn't have been able to articulate it" (265). While a young child would not connect these feelings to sex at the age of seven, Callie/Cal realizes that there is something wrong, unnatural and abnormal about this attraction.