the virgin suicides

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.