The Virgin Suicides Analysis

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The Virgin Suicides The Virgin Suicides, a 1999 film by Sofia Coppola, shows a different narrative than the original novel published in 1993 by Jeffrey Eugenides. The book is told from the neighborhood boys’ perspective of the Lisbon sisters: Ceci, Mary, Bonnie, Therese, and Lux. However, the film focuses more on the sisters themselves rather than how the boys perceive them. The story takes place in June of the 1970’s. The teenage boys have a fascination with the sisters, as the sisters are seemingly elusive and full of life. They are the kind of girls who seem to know all of your secrets, before even you do, the kind of girls who leave a permanent stain on your mind. Thirteen year old Cecilia succeeded in her second suicide attempt by “hurling …show more content…
The boys managed to get a hold of Ceci’s mundane diary, which did not hold any answers as to why she had ended her life, making the boys even more interested in unlocking the secrets the Lisbons held. Maybe it was because “added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes” (Eugenides). In the fall, the girls return to school but keep to themselves, and spend the day in the bathroom when the school holds a memorial of sorts for Ceci. Lux meets Trip Fontaine, the picture perfect, youthful, confident teenage boy who is living the American Dream. On the prom night the girls get their first taste of freedom, as they are still recovering from their sister's death and are suffering from their pushy, pretentious parents trying to enforce a perfect image upon them; the image consisting of submissiveness, christianity, domesticity, and purity, everything they are not (Welter). Mary describes the prom as being the best time of her life, which proves to be true as we anticipate her fate the very next year. This is the last sense of independence the girls will ever experience, as Lux fails to be home by her strict 11:00pm curfew. If their parents were not strict before, they crack down even