Gender Roles And Stereotypes In 'The Virgin Suicides'

The Virgin Suicides follows the lives and suicides of five teenage girls from a ‘we’ perspective of teenage boys. This ‘we’ perspective gives an interesting twist to the novel and the adaptation, letting me as the reader, view the story from a nontraditional view point. Some may argue that this novel and its film adaptation is a misogynistic story because it portrays the women as lustful objects instead of real people. However, I argue that The Virgin Suicides by Eugenides and its movie adaptation by Sofia Coppola are feminist pieces because they show how women are often shown as beautiful objects of fantasy rather then real individuals with their own stories and problems. Using a collective point of view the novel discusses gender roles and stereotypes from the opposite sex. The Lisbon daughters are referred to as one entity by the boys. They are depicted as mythical goddesses and are rather hard to distinguish. After the girls are kept

They were physically isolated and locked in their house. Lux broke curfew and it got all the daughters in trouble. Once again, the girls were grouped without given any choice. The intense isolation is what led to their suicides. Dying was their way of getting out. The Lisbon girls broke their gender roles by making their own choice about their deaths. The Lisbon daughters never got to make their own choices, their parents, mostly their mother, made all their choices for them. At the homecoming dance Lux was the only one who knew her date and the other girls pondered who they will go with and conclude that the boys will just raffle them off. Lux tries to get some freedom by being sexually promiscuous, however she is still entrapped by her home. Girls being helpless and not being able to make their own choices fit into their stereotypical roles. This novel was a feminist novel and not a misogynistic choice because the girls did break the feminine gender role in a gruesome