Kazbek uses these moments to move the plot forward and illustrate the lines between good and bad are ambiguous and fraught with contradiction.
This freedom gives him the ability to discover new aspects of himself and the world around him as he befriends the homeless and an artsy bohemian crowd. He might go to school, stay home and practice with makeup, or explore Moscow meeting an eclectic cast of acquaintances. Throughout his adolescence, Mitya is left home alone, often choosing how he spends his days for himself. Mitya felt seen." To Mitya living on the line of androgyny always felt the most comfortable. And the fact Babushka understood it, with nuance, with ambiguity, was extraordinary. " This moment strikes Mitya because "he had no idea whom he would prefer to like him, but the thing that he knew for sure was that he desperately, overwhelmingly wanted to be liked. When his grandma admires his curly blonde hair, she tells him, “Everyone will like it.
While his sexuality is only ever briefly discussed, Mitya is unsure how to define it because he doesn't see himself entirely as a boy. He likes being a girl, but he also likes the freedom to choose. As he gets more comfortable presenting himself in public as either a boy or girl in subtly accessorized ways, he decides that gender is determined by the observer. It sounded like a magical spell, like something that was not to be said out loud.” While those around Mitya want to define him into definitive identities, he is never eager to define himself. “The word devchonka was everything to Mitya. As an insult to his frail emotional son, his father calls him a “ devchonka, a girl.” In this moment, he is transformed. While his mother is impressed, she still sees this act as a deviance that must be hidden. Mitya was five the first time he put on his grandmother’s make up. This novel stands out from traditional coming of age narratives with Kazbek’s precise depiction of self-discovery through gender.
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