Background: The fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides, particularly The Virgin Suicides [1] and Middlesex [2], has been critically acclaimed for its nuanced explorations of identity, gender, and memory. However, existing scholarship has not fully examined the foundational role that the production of space plays in shaping his characters' liminal and fluid senses of self. This article addresses this gap by employing a geocritical framework to analyze the intricate relationship between place and identity in his work.

Methods: This study adopts a qualitative, interpretive approach grounded in spatial theory. It primarily utilizes Henri Lefebvre’s trialectics of perceived, conceived, and lived space [4] to deconstruct the novels' settings. This is complemented by Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopias [3] to analyze spaces of otherness and Edward Soja’s theory of "Thirdspace" [6] to understand the synthesis of real-and-imagined geographies. The overarching methodology is guided by Bertrand Westphal’s principles of geocriticism [8], focusing on the literary representation of space.

Results: The analysis reveals that Eugenides’ settings are not passive backdrops but active agents in identity formation. In The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon home functions as a carceral heterotopia, where physical confinement produces a mythical, inaccessible identity for the sisters. In Middlesex, the analysis traces the production of space from the immigrant enclaves of Detroit to the divided city of Berlin, demonstrating how the protagonist Cal’s transgender and transnational identity is forged within these liminal geographies. The narrative consistently portrays lived, experiential space as a site of resistance against the normative constraints of conceived, societal space.

Conclusion: This article concludes that in Jeffrey Eugenides’ fiction, identity is spatially produced. His novels deploy a distinct spatial poetics wherein liminal characters find and create themselves within the "Thirdspace" that exists between physical environments and their psychological interiority.

Jeffrey Eugenides, geocriticism, spatial theory

Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides; Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, NY, USA, 1993.

Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex; Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, NY, USA, 2002.

Foucault, Michel. Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. Architecture/Mouvement/Continuité 1984, pp. 46–49. Available online: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdf (accessed on 25 May 2025).

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space; Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith; Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 1991.

Massey, Doreen. For Space; SAGE: London, UK, 2005.

Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places; Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 1996.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience; University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 1977.

Westphal, Bertrand. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces; Translated by Robert T. Tally, Jr.; Palgrave Macmillan: New York, NY, USA, 2011.