Isolation In The Virgin Suicides

In the Virgin Suicides, Mrs. Lisbon is the leading cause of the girls’ deaths due to the isolation and suppression of the girls throughout the novel; here Eugenides also comments on society’s need to infiltrate other’s privacy.
Mrs. Lisbon attempts to shelter the girls from the outside world by keeping them enclosed inside the house, which further highlights that Mrs. Lisbon is trying to suppress the girls’ ideas, much like the town and is making them more susceptible to infiltration due to the fact that she is forcing them inside against their will. After the girls missing their curfew on Homecoming night, Mrs. Lisbon puts a lockdown on the house, isolating the girls from the town and any sort of interaction. However, instead of facing, to

Lisbon, further leading to their suicide. The assessment of the girls’ physical presence, created by Mrs. Lisbon relies on that she makes the girls dress and physically appear a particular way, to her liking. Through Mrs. Lisbon prohibition of wearing any sort of makeup, forcing the girls to dress a certain way and even requiring them to wear long shapeless sacks to Homecoming, further represses the girls’ outlet to express themselves. In the mornings before school or church, “she [Mrs. Lisbon] checked each daughter for signs of makeup before allowing her to get in the car, and it was not unusual for her to send Lux back inside to put on a less revealing top” (6). The way one dresses or the way they do their makeup is a potential outlet of expressing emotions, which is stripped from the girls. In addition, the Lisbon girls do not have a channel which allows them to fully share what they are feeling on account of Mrs. Lisbon’s act of overlooking the girls’ internal feelings involved. Furthermore, the continual evaluation of the girls’ physicality naturally drives them to a mental state of mind where they can no longer express what they are feeling even from the exterior point of view. Prior to the homecoming dance, “Mrs. Lisbon added an inch or two to the bustlines and two inches to the waists and hems, and the dresses

Lisbon plays the role of the town and it’s ideologies, which highly impacts the girls, further causing their suicide attempts and ultimately their suicide. Eugenides highlights the motif of society and the external part of the world needing to constantly sift through people’s privacy. This connects to present day today, in which girls are highly impacted by society due to beauty standards and need to constantly look presentable in public. In addition, the idea of society continuously infiltrating other’s privacy comes up in our government in regards to the police tapping into our online lives such as what one searches in google or what one says on the phone. The non-stop infiltration of privacy in both the real world and the novel shows a lot about humanity and connects to the fear of the unknown. Through the addition of this idea in the novel, Eugenides ultimately comments on how everyone is fearing the unknown, further driving them to infiltration of other’s personal