Doesn't Eli deny being a boy at one point?

[I_Am_Nobody]

Yes, I know, Eli's gender has already been discussed plenty on this site before. I admit that I am very late to the party, and this post may seem redundant. I am aware that John Ajvide Lindqvist intended for Eli to be a boy. There is just *one* scene in the book that I would like to talk about, because it is constantly on my mind.

At one point in the book, Eli is laying in bed with Oscar. Eli makes his famous "I'm not a girl" line, and then this Dialogue follows:


Oskar snorted. "What do you mean? You're a guy?"

"No, no."

"Then what are you?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, 'nothing'?"

"I'm nothing. Not a child. Not old. Not a boy. Not a girl. Nothing." - pages 170-171



If Eli is a boy, why would he deny being one? Is he telling a falsehood, or is there something else going on? What is on Eli's mind in this scene, I wonder? 

[metoo]

If Eli is a boy, why would he deny being one? Is he telling a falsehood, or is there something else going on? What is on Eli's mind in this scene, I wonder?

At this point, Eli has established an "ordinary" friendship (i.e. with someone else than a helper, I assume) for the first time for 200 years. However, Eli's new friend, Oskar, believes Eli to be a girl, and Eli plays along.

Then Oskar asks Eli to go steady (which a somewhat misleading translation of the original's har jag chans på dig). Eli doesn't know the expression, but (obviously to adult readers, but not to Oskar) fears that it might involve sexual activities. Eli obviously cannot partake in those and tries to say so, but still doesn't dare to tell the truth about his gender and risk to lose Oskar's friendship. So he gets entangled in a denying to be a girl and at the same time not daring to tell that he is (or at least was) a boy. The result is the "nothing", which Oskar finds ridiculous. Eli eventually manages to turn Oskar's attention away from the subject, and finally learns that Oskar's question was very innocent.

Now, there is more to that "nothing". It has been discussed at length at this forum. However, JAL intended Eli to be androgynous, and this might have some implications for Eli's self perception. Does he regard himself as a boy or not? I don't know, the novel doesn't say much about it. Personally, I think Eli still identifies as a boy, but dosen't bother much about what other people believe. He will play along with whatever they seem to think, and his androgynous nature makes this easy.

[Siggdalos]

I posted some thoughts about this exchange in another thread earlier this year, so I'll simply quote myself here.

I think that, in that line ["I'm nothing"], he's being sincere about how he views himself, and furthermore that it's something he's thought about a lot over the years. It's not just something he tells Oskar on the spot.

Eli lies to Oskar time and again throughout the book, but in that scene he doesn't. The most you can say is that he's deliberately vague about where he's been ("getting food") and where Håkan is ("gone"), but in the rest of the exchange he's truthful in everything he says. I think the "I'm nothing" line is no different.

Thinking of Eli as a blank slate is also consistent with how JAL thought about the character while writing.

March 14, 2001
On the subject of identity. I've let Oskar ponder who he is based on how others perceive him. Eli has taken this to the extreme in that he deliberately disguises himself and becomes different things for different people. The helpless child, Eli, the Beloved, Elias. [...] Maybe solitude, among other things, is that you've lost the ability or weakness to be defined by others. You decide for yourself. That's the most extreme transition to adulthood that Eli can offer. Solitude in one's armored self. Metaphorically, the vampire has no reflection, because with time he has become an everything and a nothing. He never reflects himself in anything other than himself.

I wanted Eli to act as an in-between. Girlish sometimes, boyish sometimes. He can be anything, and he suprised me many times while writing the novel.
[...] [F]rom the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me.

That said, you can also read the line as Eli simply backtracking or dodging the question. I.e., he says he's not a girl. Oskar thinks this sounds absurd, coming from the very feminine Eli, and sarcastically asks if this means Eli is a boy. Fearing that Oskar will reject him if he seriously thinks that this is the case, Eli quickly adds that he's not a boy either, or anything else for that matter.

But that interpretation wouldn't explain why he brings the topic of his age (or lack thereof) into the conversation.

"Maybe you already have a boyfriend at school."
"No, but ... Oskar, I can't ... I'm not a girl."
Oskar snorted. "What do you mean? Are you a boy, or what?"
"No. No."
"So what are you?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean 'nothing'?"
"I'm nothing. Not a child. Not old. Not a boy. Not a girl. Nothing."

(My translation.)

EDIT: It's also worth pointing out that this conversation comes only a few pages after the scene earlier in the same chapter where the cancer woman asks "Who are you?" and Eli replies "I don't know", followed by the hallucination scene in which he's confronted by his past traumas. Saying that he's "nothing" could be read as an attempt to escape all that. He doesn't want to say that he's Elias, because that would mean acknowledging that he used to have a normal life that was taken from him. He doesn't want to say that he's male, because that would mean acknowledging the mutilation he suffered. Easier and less painful to claim that he's nothing, with no identity, no past, and no scars.

Is one way of reading it, that is. I'm not saying the above thought is correct.

[I_Am_Nobody]

Thank you both for these responses. It provides some food for thought.