the virgin suicides

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.