The Virgin Suicides

1
The Virgin Suicides

• Chapters 1-2

2
Chapter 1

• Narration
• Weve tried to arrange the photographs
  chronologically, though the passage of so many
  years has made it difficult (4-5).
• Perspective of boys in the neighborhood
• Their memories- fading and deteriorating
• Subjective (boys observations) versus objective
  (interviews and facts)
• Boys we versus the Lisbon sisters them
• Boys trying to make sense of the girls and what
  they did
• put them back together

3
Chapter 1

• Cecilia
• the youngest, only thirteen, had gone first,
  slitting her wrists like a Stoic with the yellow
  eyes of someone possessed and her small body
  giving off the odor of a mature woman (3)
• She didnt say a word, but when they parted her
  hands they found a Virgin Mary she held against
  her budding chest (4).
• She looked lie a tiny Cleopatra on the imperial
  letter (5).
• Lost in between childhood and adolescence
• Seems wise beyond her years
• Mystical, religious
• Virgin Mary/ Virgin Suicide

4
Chapter 1

• Environment
• the slate roof had not yet begun to shed its
  shingles, the porch was still visible above the
  bushes, and the windows were not yet held
  together with strips of masking tape (5).
• What house was like before
• Loss and death is reflected in the environment
• Progressive deterioration of environment
  parallels the girls

5
Chapter 1

• Obsession with happiness
• Our local newspaper neglected to run an article
  on the suicide attempt, because the editor, Mr.
  Baubee, felt such depressing information wouldnt
  fit between the front-page article on the Junior
  League Flower Show and the back-page photographs
  of grinning brides (15).
• On the day Cecilia returned from the hospital,
  those two women brought over a Bundt cake in
  sympathy, but Mrs. Lisbon refused to acknowledge
  any calamity (17).
• Suburbs represent artificial happiness
• Not personal but a social expectation
• What is proper is better than what is morally or
  humanly appropriate

6
Chapter 1

• The Wedding Dress
• The dress was vintage 19920s. It had sequins
  on the bust she didnt fill out, and someone,
  either Cecilia or herself or the owner of the
  used clothing store, had cut off the bottom of
  the dress with a jagged stroke so that it ended
  above Cecilias chafed knee (26).
• The wedding dress bore spots of hospital food,
  stewed carrots and beets (27).

7
Chapter 1

• Wedding Dress
• Vintage, too big, out of place, her connection
  with the past
• Catholicism Bride of Christ (beauty and purity)
• She puts it on after a long bath before killing
  herself
• Ritualistic sacrifice?
• Represents her innocence and purity
• Stains show loss of it

8
Chapter 2

• Cecilias death
• a creature who in dog years was still a puppy-
  Cecilia Lisbon (35).
• Cecilia emerged from the background like a
  figure in an optical illusion. She was dressed
  not in the wedding gown, which Mrs. Lisbon had
  thrown away, but in a beige dress with a lace
  collar, a Christmas gift from her grandmother
  which she refused to wear in life (39).
• First funeral in town
• No small coffins
• Represent the unnaturalness of her death
• Death being confined to the very young or the
  very old

9
Chapter 2

• Cecilias death
• Ruins the perfect existence of the community
• Not part of the suburban dream
• Most of our parents attended the funeral,
  leaving us home to protect us from the
  contamination of tragedy (38).

10
Chapter 2

• Cemetery versus suburbia
• Inside, neglect resulting from the strike was
  obvious (38).
• Cemetery workers on strike
• State of cemetery contrasts the maintained yards
  of the neighborhood
• Workers rejection of their labor contracts
  reflects Cecilias refusal to conform thus her
  death
• Both lead to the decline in the environment

11
Chapter 2

• Cecilias diary
• Instead, Cecilia writes of her sisters and
  herself as a single entity. Its often difficult
  to identify which sister she is talking about
• And so we learned about their lives, came to
  hold collective memories of times we hadnt
  experienced(40)
• Drives the boys desire and curiosity to know
  more
• Writes as they are 1 we same as boys
• Writes what takes place in house but no
  motivation or emotions included
• No answers as to why?

12
Chapter 2

• Girls and Boys
• We knew that the girls were our twins, that we
  all existed in space like animals with identical
  skins, and that they knew everything about us
  though we couldnt fathom them at all (43-44).
• Contrast between male and female perspective,
  bodies, knowledge
• Allows them the only insight into the girls lives

13
Chapter 2

• Horror of the Mundane (ordinary)
• Death treated as daily routine
• Average life and actions creates disaster
• Implication that the everyday domestic aspects
  are life-threatening
• This would prove fatal to the Suburbs
• Must treat it as a catastrophic event so they
  stay safe- cannot be a problem that might be in
  their lives