Ending

Seeing as the ending was revealed on the first page, the novel proved to be incredibly anticlimactic, with the only real suspense lying in whether or not the boys would discover a purpose for the suicides of the five Lisbon sisters. Yet, ultimately they are left, just as the reader is, making their own conclusions as to why the girls chose death. These men, formerly the young adolescent boys that lusted for the Lisbon girls, eventually draw the conclusion that they killed themselves out of “selfishness. The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.” Although we agree with the boys general assumption that the girls assumed they knew better than the world they lived in and opted out of it, we do not feel the suicides were an act of selfishness. We feel it was a combination of the many rumors that swirled amongst the community, each of which claimed to be the cause. The novel takes place in a time when little was understood about depression and suicide. The doctors of the novel believed it to be an illness caused by bad genes or elevated hormone levels and could be spread like germs. They viewed Cecelia as the catalyst that infected her sisters. Therapists felt the Lisbons were too strict on the girls and they saw no other escape than death. While we acknowledge the pressures of their parents as a contributing factor to the death, we feel that like the doctors, the Lisbon sisters did not fully understand depression. Because they could not pinpoint an exact cause for their suicidal thoughts, they felt the only way to cope would be death. Additionally, because the neighborhood, the school, and even the Lisbon parents refused to acknowledge or discuss the topic of Cecelia’s death, this must have contributed to the four Lisbon sisters lack of understanding and closure as they dealt with the emotional consequences of losing a family member. 

Image Study

Tree – The neighborhood where the Lisbon family resides has incredibly strict guidelines concerning overall outer appearance of residences’ houses, and the neighborhood committee is very proactive in keeping each house looking uniform and nearly identical. Each yard has an elm tree planted in it, but the trees in the neighborhood suffer from an illness that can be spread from tree to tree. To prevent the death of multiple trees, the Parks Department routinely comes through to cut down any sick trees.  The year following Cecelia’s death, the Parks Department comes to cut the elm in the Lisbon’s yard. Since the neighbors have never objected to the removal of the sick elms, everyone is surprised to see the four remaining Lisbon sisters rush outside to form a circle around their doomed tree. In their minds, the tree represents the memory of Cecelia. As their neighbor, Mrs. Scheer, recalled, “That particular elm had been Cecelia’s favorite. Its tarred knothole still retained her small handprint. Cecelia often stood under it in the springtime, trying to catch the whirling propellers of its seeds. The girls weren’t saving it. They were saving her memory.” Though the image of the elm to the Lisbon sisters represents the joy and memory of Cecelia, to the audience, it stands for something much more powerful. Although the tree appeared healthy to the girls on the outside, it was the inside that was sick with no hope for returning to a healthy state; just as the sisters appeared to be thriving on the outside, it was on the inside that they were consumed with depression and grief over the inexplicable loss of their sister that ultimately led to their suicides. The girls fought a losing battle to save the dying tree, and in the end, the image of the tree stump that was formerly Cecelia’s favorite elm represents the losing battle the girl’s fought for themselves to overcome the loss of their sister, when in the end they knew they saw no other way out but death. In addition, the image of this one elm, Cecelia’s elm, spreading a sickness to the surrounding elms can be linked to Cecelia’s depression and suicidal thoughts being spread to her sisters, as it was literally believed in the novel and can be figuratively perceived by reader.

Light – Both the presence and absence of light provide a strong image throughout the novel. Following the death of Cecelia, the boys frequently comment on the darkness that has overcome the Lisbon household. The image of the blackened house represents the figurative death of the rest of the Lisbon family in the wake of her suicide. It was as if they ceased functioning after Cecelia killed herself. Mrs. Lisbon secluded herself in the home refusing to do any sort of household chore or even care for her remaining daughters. Mr. Lisbon became a shell of his former self, carrying out his job at the school with the monotony of a robot. The remaining Lisbon sisters, however, provide the image of the presence of light. Their light represents the fight to overcome the depression they suffer from and the longing they have to escape the pressures of their mother. One scene in the novel describes the girls flickering on their lanterns at the boys across the street in some sort of pattern to convey a message for help. In between flashes the boys detect a much dimmer, flickering light coming from Cecelia’s former room. Only upon later investigation do they learn it was the candle set up in the vigil the girls had made in memory of their sister. The image of the bright lights emitted from the rooms shows the girl’s desire to overcome the grief and break free from the inescapable pressures of their mother, while the image of the flickering candle conveys the dwindling of said desire. Ultimately the girl’s will to live fades just as the flame of Cecelia’s candle does. The boys explain the struggling image of the candle one night as they watch Bonnie tend to its flame by saying, “Most often she watched the candle as if the outcome held her own, the flames almost extinguishing themselves, but, by some greed of oxygen, persisting.” Eventually, the lack of light comes to represent the figurative death of the Lisbon parents and the literal death of their five daughters.

Virgin Mary cards – From the very first pages of the novel, when Cecelia is found lying in the bathtub with slit wrists, clutching a laminated image of the Virgin Mary, the image of the cards holds strong meaning. The back has been printed with the statement that, “The Virgin Mary has been appearing in our city, bringing her message of peace to a crumbling world.” After discovering the card, Mr. Lisbon explains, “We baptized her, we confirmed her, and now she believes this crap.” By the end of the novel, however, this “crap” is believed by all five Lisbon sisters. The notes delivered to the boys are inscribed on the back of these cards, and the neighborhood often awakes to find the images scattered upon lawns, stuck in bushes, and left in mailboxes. The significance of the image of the Virgin Mary conveys the idea that the girls likened themselves to the Virgin. They too saw the world as crumbling; their idea of peace and escape was death.

Makeup – Under the very strict guidelines of Mrs. Lisbon, the girls are forbidden to wear any sort of makeup; however, their use of it throughout the novel, specifically lipstick, represents their unified rebellion against the rules imparted upon them. The boys discover in the bathroom one night while having dinner with the family, a “secret cache of cosmetics tied up in a sock under the sink: tubes of red lipstick and the second skin of blush and base. [They] didn’t know whose makeup Peter Sissen had found until [they] saw Mary Lisbon two weeks later on the pier with a crimson mouth.” Later in the novel, as an ambulance arrives to take Lux to the hospital for alleged appendicitis, she appears from the house, writhing in pain, yet she took the time to apply “the forbidden pink lipstick that tasted of strawberries”.  Finally, when Mary’s body, the last of the five sisters, is discovered “with so much makeup that the paramedics had the odd feeling she had already been prepared for viewing by an undertaker.” It seems that the image of the makeup allowed the girls to represent their individuality and separate themselves from the unified grouping of all five sisters they were so often subjected too. The makeup allowed each sister to express herself, whether it was Lux’s daring choice of lipstick on the ambulance ride to the hospital where she would await the answer to her pregnancy test, or Mary’s message that she intended to die and therefore left her body in a state that expressed just that. 

The Book vs. The Movie

             Having read the book and the watched to movie, I personally enjoyed them both. Unlike many movies based off of a novel, this movie actually follows the exact story line of the book. However, there were many characters that I could say were different throughout the movie and particular scenes that were different than the book. For example, the movie does not do a good job of characterizing each sister, but this may have been on purpose to more clearly show how the boys clumped the sisters together and never truly knew the details of each sister. The book better explains the girls. I found this take on characterization more intriguing because it made you feel like you were part of the sisterhood and allowed you to sympathize with each girl on a personal level.

            Trip Fontaine was quite the same in both the movie and the book. His attitude, his look was exactly the way I envisioned it to be. He was the ultimate heartthrob and in the movie you could see how easily his charms worked on the girls. For instance, there was one scene when Trip was late coming to school and he had to go to the office to get a slip. A young girl was sitting at the chair and he basically proved why every girl in the school drooled over him. All he did was go up to her and say "Hey beautiful. I'm late again." Then he pushed a strand of her hair back and she blushed. That's all it took for him to get a slip for being excused for being late.  The one scene which I found was the most different compared to the movie was the scene when Trip and Lux have sex on the football field. In the book Trip said "I just left her. I didn't care how she got home." In the movie Trip says "I don't know why I left. I just got up and left, not caring how she got home." Trip Fontaine regrets leaving Lux a lot more in the movie than in the book. When I read this exact scene in the book I was so mad at Trip for doing that but when I saw the exact same scene in the movie I wasn't mad because this time I could understand his emotions. It seemed as if Trip was scared about how hard he fell for her and leaving her was the only solution he could think of at the time. In the movie I felt bad for Trip because it seemed he was confused about his feelings for Lux.  

Another difference between the book and the movie was the romance of Trip and Lux. In the book there romance happened in the span of 30 pages, but in the movie it seemed as though it was the central event. The book shows that this romance led to the eventual downfall of Lux. After committing her “virgin suicide” she was isolated from society because of her parents’ loss in trust, but this did not stop her from being sexually involved. In the book she the romance between Lux and Trip did not seem like love. It seemed as though Lux used him for her own pleasure. This compares to the movie because the director of the movie showed this as not only a sexual interaction but a love. It made it seem as though Lux became depressed not because of the isolation from society following this event, but because of the heart break she experienced when Trip left. There was one significant scene about Lux and Trip that was different than in the book. There was one phrase that Trip said to Lux and that was "Your a stone fox". After the both of them have sex, they do not speak to each other again. That was the same in both the movie and the book. What was different was when all the girls were taken out of school and were in their rooms, that Lux replayed that sentence in her head while sitting on the window seat. For me, that changed the relationship dynamic between them. The repeat of that phrase proved that Lux still cared about Trip but more importantly still thought about him. That dialogue was never repeated in the book and therefore I was sad that Lux and Trip never got together or never thought about each other.

Also Mr. Lisbon was one I really despised in the book. However, my interpretation of him changed in the movie. In the book Mr. Lisbon seemed as equally if not more responsible for the girls' suicides. He seemed rude and strict in the book but his character in the movie was different. In the movie it seemed as if Mrs. Lisbon wore the pants in the house and in their relationship. For instance, when Trip asked Mr. Lisbon if he could take Lux to the Homecoming dance, Mr. Lisbon said "Oh I don't know. I'll have to run it by my wife first." There were a couple examples in the movie of when Mr. Lisbon seemed to connect or show love toward his daughters, which weren’t shown in the book. For example, when Lux Lisbon won the award for Homecoming Queen at the dance Mr. Lisbon seemed very proud. Also when the girls were getting ready for the dance Mr. Lisbon came in and took a photo but all Mrs. Lisbon did was say "Drive carefully" and "We normally don't allow this." Mr. Lisbon just seemed more caring and loving in the movie than in the book. Mr. Lisbon emotions shown through his body language and facial expressions in the movie gave me a new perspective of him.

Overall, the book and the movie went along with each other well. The casting and the uses of color to portray mood in the movie really went along well with the book. There were just a few character and scene differences, but the underlying point and themes were still intact throughout the movie.

The Trees

“After denuding the trunk, the men left to denude others, and for a time the tree stood blighted, trying to raise its stunted arms, a creature clubbed mute, only its sudden voicelessness making us realize it had been speaking all along.”

This passage, from the middle of Chapter Four, describes the Parks Department's standard procedure for dealing with a tree that has caught Dutch Elm Disease. Throughout Chapter Four, the boys hear saws, as the officials cut down infected trees in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading. Nonetheless, by novel's end, this process resulted in the loss of all the neighborhood's trees. This destruction of the suburb's physical environment mirrors its less tangible disintegration, which the boys feel began with the Lisbon deaths. Furthermore, the rapid spread of the elm epidemic symbolizes the neighborhood's fears about suicide.  Dr. Hornicker publically discusses and states that suicide is an infectious disease, just like the Ditch Elm Disease. The boys, who narrate the story, don’t realize what they have until it is taken away from them. After the removal of the trees the neighborhood seems bleak and empty. They experience a similar feeling when the kills are taken away from them. Both the girls, and the trees, are taken for granted by the boys until they are suddenly removed by forces beyond the boys' control.

In my opinion, the “denuding of the trunk” symbolizes the effects of society and the Lisbon parents had on the five girls. After the first suicide, the remaining girls were forever more linked with suicide in the eyes of society. They were isolated because of their neighbors fear that they had caught the “suicide disease” and would pass it on. Also the girls were further isolated from society at the fault of their parents. After the failed attempt at allowing the girls to be normal and attend homecoming with boys, the Lisbon parents cut off all communication for the girls and confined them to the house. They were taken out of school and were very rarely seen outside of the house. They had no way of seeking help. Lux had to fake an illness in order to see the doctor about a personal matter. Just like the trees the girls were “clubbed mute” and could not “raise their stunted arms” for help. Even the boys who studied there every move could not understand or help them. The boys were too entranced in their idea of the girls, and in return they didn’t realize the girl’s attempt at communication. The boys were continually blind to the present as it happened and had to reconstruct the girls past by means of the unseen, the invisible, and the forgotten, signs which—like the tree's silence in this passage—serve to convey the immensity of what has been lost. The novel continually focuses on what is missing by emphasizing unknown details, lost time, and the inaccessible girls.

Themes From American Literature

In this novel one of the prominent themes is how Americans are obsessed with happiness, even if it is artificial. This theme is mainly shown through the character of “Old” Mrs. Karafilis. The narrators of the novel describe her as being old, cranky, Greek woman. She stays in the basement and rarely come upstairs or socializes. This is mainly because she bowed by the weight of tragedy. In the novel it is said that she had hidden in a cave to escape being killed by Turks, and she had lost the on love of her life, her husband. The young narrators never understand what made her so mean they just said, “Old Mrs. Karafilis had been shaped and saddened by a history we knew nothing about”.  Throughout the novel it is shown that Old Mrs. Karafilis does not understand why Americans pretend to be happy all the time. To her, the suburbs are a place where artificially made surroundings and lives culminate in the tyranny of an enforced happiness. Suburban life does not acknowledge one's personal feeling; instead suburban happiness is a matter of social ritual, where the community continuously proves itself. For Old Mrs. Karafilis, the idea of continual fake happiness is shown through the image of Mr. Lisbon stringing Christmas lights recently after his daughter's suicide. Mrs. Karafilis is entranced by the Lisbon family, because of their way of ignoring death and trying to mask their sadness. It is said that, “She couldn’t understand how the Lisbon’s kept so quiet, why they didn’t wail to heaven or go mad”. Usually it is expected that a family would show their sadness and grief when phased with death, but the Lisbon and the rest of the American culture at this time were obsessed with being happy and not showing their struggle in life. For many Americans the American dream is being happy and better off than your neighbors. Therefore sadness is masked with an artificial happiness in hopes of retaining their social status.

The novel shows other examples suburban ritual to support Old Mrs. Karafilis' theory. For example, the high school holds a day of grieving in response to Cecilia's death, which the school considers to be a great success despite the fact that the suicide was never mentioned and that the Lisbon sisters wait out the day in the bathroom. Also the neighborhood fathers remove the particular fence on which Cecilia jumped, in order to remove the grief and sadness it gave off into the neighborhood. These examples describe a widespread suburban emphasis on the idea that what is proper is infinitely better than what is morally or humanly appropriate.

This theme is also supported by the irony of American happiness is suggested by the characters of Lux Lisbon and Trip Fontaine. After living his youth at the pinnacle of the American dream, Trip spends his middle age in detox recovering. Likewise, Lux's decadent sexuality leads to her premature death. Trip and Lux's search for love and happiness eventually hurts their bodies; similarly, the suburban attempts at American happiness prove to be false and fatal.

For boys who spent their adolescence obsessed with the five Lisbon sisters and their adult lives reminiscing on their loves lost, we found it to be ironic that aside from Lux and Cecilia, they could barely differentiate between the girls. Although it was rare, when the boys finally found themselves in the presence of the sisters instead of admiring from afar, they were unable to distinguish who was who because they obsessed over the family as a whole. Rather than singling one girl out, they view the sisters as one homogenous group.  After Cecilia’s first attempt at suicide, the Lisbon family holds a party in order to socialize the girls and make Cecilia feel normal and less ostracized for her dramatic behavior. The boys dreams briefly come true when they are invited to the gathering, but once they come face to face with the neighbors they became acquainted with behind the safety of their window, they “realized the Lisbon girls were all different people. Instead of five replicas with the same blond hair and puffy cheeks we saw that they were distinct beings.” They later stumble upon the same problem during the homecoming dance when the only sister with a date is Lux. However, the agreement made between Mr. Lisbon and Trip, Lux’s date, was she could go if the other three remaining girls had dates as well. Thus the boys step up to escort their loves to the only date they’ll ever be taken on. Yet, despite agreeing to take the sisters, none of the boys picks a specific sister to take and as the girls descend the steps on the night of the dance the boys once again discover “[they] weren’t even sure which girl was which”. Aside from the fact that the sisters are alike in feature, the reason these boys, who are never identified by name or differentiated themselves, cannot tell the Lisbon sisters apart is because they don’t know the girls at all. The details they accumulate on the family are found in their own sneaky ways as teens and through interviews as adults, not by direct contact. The irony is they merely had a crush from afar that turned into a lifelong obsession in the wake of the tragedy that befell the five sisters these boys never had the chance to know personally but yearned so desperately to do so. However, although it is ironic for the boys to love five girls they cannot tell apart, we found this grouping of the sisters to be intentional by the author. Several times through the insight of other characters the girls are once again viewed as a whole rather than as individuals, even amongst the sisters themselves. Reading through Cecilia’s diary entry, one boy notes, “[she] writes of her sisters and herself as a single entity. It’s often difficult to identify which sister she’s talking about”. It seems that the purpose behind the lack of individualism betweens the sisters is a comment on how the allure of the girls lies in their power as a whole. 

The entire novel consists of a group, undetermined in number, of men detailing their experience and lifelong obsession over five sisters that tragically ended their lives as teens. The youngest of the five, Cecilia, ends her life first, and following the suicide, the Lisbon family, and years later the boys themselves, read through her journal in an effort to determine the cause of her suicide. Though nothing substantial was discovered at the time, psychiatrists that talked to the Lisbon parents after the incident warned them to become more lenient with the household rules on the girls. They felt Cecilia was stifled by the demands of her parents and this ultimately led to her deciding the only escape from it all would be ending her life. The Lisbon children are raised in a strong Christian family. Although rock music is Lux’s favorite, she is not allowed to listen to it, much less own CD’s. Sixteen-year-old Mary is forbidden to wear makeup. The entire clan dresses in Pentecostal clothing sewn by Mrs. Lisbon, and after spending the day in the local Catholic church, hymnals are routinely played in the household on Sundays. These among a litany of other rules are enforced unwaveringly in the Lisbon family. Though the novel centers on these men picking through the past to discover any evidence as to why these five girls would take their lives at such a young age and the ultimate cause will most likely be revealed, if ever, at the end of the novel, we are in agreement with the psychiatrists at this point. After spending their teens suppressed of free will, these girls became fed up and followed the decision of their sister to escape the burden of their parents’ demands. Memories of the girls mentioned in the interviews the men later conduct in their efforts to determine why the Lisbon sisters ended their lives give away little clues that it was perhaps the pressure that got to them. One classmate recalls finding a doodle Mary made that depicted “a girl with pigtails bent under the weight of a gigantic boulder. Her cheeks puff out, and her rounded lips expel steam. One widening steam cloud contains the word pressure, darkly retraced”. The girls are described as a having a sunny disposition and being generally social, but surely doodles like these amongst other details were cries for help from teenage sisters desperate to break away from the weight of their stern parents.   

Rhetoric Study

Author Jeffery Eugenides uses incredibly graphic, morbid language to convey a dark sense of humor. When describing the severe situations that the plot centers on, such as suicide and depression, Eugenides uses such blunt detail that what is typically regarded as a humorless scenario comes across as quite comical. Given that the entire story is told from the vantage point of adolescent boys that lack politically correct social skills, experience with girls, and all-around maturity, the specific style in which the story is written could be the author’s attempt to sounds if he were still thirteen. The frank nature of the author is best exemplified when describing perhaps the most tragic main character Cecilia, the youngest of the five Lisbon sisters. Below a short excerpt of the aforementioned passage is included.

Cecilia, just thirteen years old, secluded herself from the party "wearing, as usual, the wedding dress with the shorn hem. The dress was vintage 1920s. It had sequins on the bust she didn't fill out, and someone, either Cecilia herself or the owner of the used clothing store had cut off the bottom of the dress with a jagged stroke so that is ended above Cecilia's chafed knees. She sat on a barstool, staring into her punch glass, and the shapeless bag of a dress fell over her. She had colored her lips with red crayon, which gave her face a deranged harlot look, but she acted as though no one were there… The bandages had been removed, but she was wearing a collection of bracelets to hide the scars. Scotch tape held the undersides of the bracelets to Cecilia’s skin, so they wouldn’t slide. The wedding dress bore spots of hospital food, stewed carrots and beets.”  

Eugenides lists a litany of eccentricities that, viewed as a whole, make up a sad human being. Yet, the manner in which he goes about introducing her various oddities is done in such a fashion that rather than trying to evoke pity for the girl with the slit wrists, he takes a stab at humor over the thought of someone wearing bracelets taped to their forearms. These bits of comic relief laced throughout the story have an inadvertent quality to them. It’s as if the author is not even trying to make light of the situation. The simplistic way that these teenage boys perceive the Lisbon family and the memories connected to the times spent with those girls end up coming across as euphemisms, such as the taped bracelets, the dance around the suicide attempt at hand and make the description funny. At times, the direct approach is shocking, for example when the neighbor down the street is referred to as “Joe the Retard”, but although the explicit style may be an acquired preference, we have enjoyed Eugenides' sneaky black humor so far. 

The Fence

The fence is a prominent image throughout the first part of the novel. It becomes so important because it is the key factor in the suicide of Cecilia Lisbon. Cecilia jumped from the second story window onto the spikes of this steel fence below and died. Mr. Lisbon went out the fence where his youngest daughter’s dead body was laying and he struggled to get her off, but it was useless. After the funeral, the fence became a burden to look at for the Lisbon family and for the rest of the neighborhood. The removal of the fence became a uniting factor for all of the families in the neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood except for the mourning Lisbons, joined together to remove the fence; “It was the greatest show of common effort we could remember in our neighborhood, all those lawyers, doctors, and mortgage bankers locked arm in arm in the trench, with our mothers bringing out orange Kool-Aid , and for a moment our century was noble again.” The fence symbolizes how neighbors unite when times get bad. Even though the Lisbons were usually secluded from the other neighbors, it was still a noble and neighborly thing to do by removing the burden of the fence. The fence was a constant reminder of the suicide of the youngest Lisbon daughter. Every day the Lisbons and the rest of the neighborhood were reminded of the tragedy because of this fence. Therefore, it was crucial to remove it in order to move on with life. Although the fence was an image of tragedy and gruesome death, it later became a source of the noble deed of the neighborhood. In times of tragedy people tend to unite, and in this novel the neighbors united through the removal of the fence.

Character Study

Lux Lisbon- Although there are five unique Lisbon sisters, Lux is the prominent in the book. She is the ideal image of a “Lisbon sister”.  The narrators, who curiously study the five sisters, have a preset image that all the sisters are identically beautiful and eccentric. However, as more is revealed about the sisters, the narrators realize that Lux is the only sister that accorded to their predetermined image.  The narrators described her by saying, “She radiated health and mischief. Her dress fit tightly, and when she came forward to shake our hands, she secretly moved one finger to tickle our palms, giving off at the same time a strange gruff laugh.” She is the only sister who is mischievous; she breaks her parents’ rules by sneaking out, meeting up with boys, and smoking cigarettes. All the boys at school chase after Lux, but the relationships she has with them are described as: “Lux’s brief unions were clandestine. They sprouted in the dead time of study halls, bloomed on the way to the drinking fountain, and were consummated in the hot box above the auditorium, amid uncomfortable theatrical lights and cables.” Most of the boys she meets are stupid and selfish. However, the only reliable boy Lux meets is Trip Fontaine. Lux is a typical teenage girl, who seeks rebellion from her over bearing parents. Therefore, she rebels sexually. The psychiatrist in the book points out that Lux seeks these short lived sexual interactions because she is seeking love that she doesn’t receive at home.

Cecilia Lisbon- Cecilia is the youngest Lisbon sister. In the opening paragraph it is stated that she slit her wrists in the bath tub once, but this first attempted suicide failed. After this attempt the doctors suggested that the Lisbon parents be less strict. Therefore, the Lisbon’s allowed their daughters to have a party. At the party we first see the different personalities of each sister. While all the other sisters are trying to impress the boys, Cecilia is sitting in the corner wearing a vintage wedding dress. The way the author describes Cecilia in the passage makes her seem crazy: “She had colored her lips with red crayon…”, “She was wearing a collection of bracelets taped to her arm to hide the scars…”, and she had spots of hospital food still on her dress. The boys at the party knew to stay away from Cecilia, because unlike the other girls she secluded herself from the party. Later, she asks to be excused from the party, this is the first time that the boys hear her talk. They describe her as sounding mature, old, and tired.  A few minutes after being excused, the party hears an abrupt crash of her small body onto the fence below her window. Although not much is found out about Cecilia, she seems to be the trigger to the following suicides. It is never explained why she killed herself, but the neighbors did find one of her journals, which may later explain why.

Trip Fontaine- Trip is a prominent character because of his sexual interaction with Lux Lisbon. He is described as the only reliable boy that Lux has been with. He doesn’t brag or flaunt the things he does with Lux, instead he respects her and keeps quiet. The author tells us that Trip use to be just a regular young teenage boy, but that he matured to be a man much faster than the boys around him. This is because of his week-long romance with Gina Desander. Gina was an older woman that taught Trip how to be a man sexually and mentally. Not only did Trips personality change, but so did his looks. After that week with Gina, all the girls at school and their mothers fell in love with Trip. He could have any women he wanted, but for some unexplainable reason he became secretly in love with Lux. He was the first boy to enter the Lisbon house alone and later Lux snuck out to be with him. He was amazed at their sexual interaction. It was nothing he had ever experienced before. The author described Trip’s feelings by saying, “… he was still amazed by Lux’s singleness of purpose, her total lack of inhibitions, her mythic mutability that allowed her to possess three or four arms at once.” Trip had a lot of experience with other girls, but he felt inadequate to Lux’s sexual needs. He described her as a creature, but in good way. He has never experienced love like that one and all of the women that followed Lux didn’t even compare. Trip never understood what attracted him to her or why he was so obsessed with her.

Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon- Mrs. Lisbon is an over-bearing Christian who creates strict guidelines for her daughters to live by. She doesn’t allow boys to come over, the girls to go out, tight clothing, risqué tv shows, or many other forms of entertainment. Although it seems like Mr. Lisbon is strict too, we believe that he is just afraid of his wife. Both parents love their daughters, but they both believe in different ways of raising them. Throughout the book you can see Mr. Lisbon’s attempts at being “normal”. For example, in the book the author describes how all the fathers in the neighborhood join together each autumn to burn the fallen leaves. Mr. Lisbon each year would join the fathers in doing this because of his longing to be normal and fit in. However, Mrs. Lisbon’s paranoia over the fire getting out of control would diminish Mr. Lisbon’s enjoyment of being normal with the rest of the neighborhood. There is no question that Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon love their daughters, but Mrs. Lisbon strict believes about life may be the thing sparking the girls’ rebellions and eventual suicides.