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.