Character

The Virgin Suicides Characters.

     Characters: Section 1.

     The whole story usually is only focused on the Lisbon girls and Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon. Never really focusing on the neighbor boys nor anyone who adds to the story. Later you'll see the drastic changes in the Lisbons. The first description that is direct towards us, is the Lisbon girls age. "The Lisbon girls were thirteen (Cecilia), and fourteen (Lux), and fifteen (Bonnie), and sixteen (Mary), and seventeen (Therese)." (Eugenides 7) this is directly told to us to see how different ages deal with their situations ahead. The descriptions "They were short, round buttocked in denim with roundish cheeks that recalled that same dorsal softness." (Eugenides 7) they're described as cute ordinary girls. Lux, however is shown to have more of a provocative side. "...she checked each daughter for signs of make up 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 reveling top." (Eugenides 8) She is also know to be the prettiest out of the Lisbon girls. "Lux Lisbon was the only one who accorded with our image of the Lisbon girls. She radiated health and mischief." (Eugenides 26) This also adds that she is more risky than the other girls.
     The book describes Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon when the boys wonder how they made these beautiful girls. Starting with Mr. Lisbon "He was thin, boyish, stunned by his own grey hair. He had a high voice, a d when Joe Larson told us how Mr. Lisbon cried when Lux was rushed to the hospital during her own suicide scare, we could easily imagine the sound of his girlish weeping." (Eugenides 8) This also shows that Mr. Lisbon is a person who is easily over powered. Mrs. Lisbon is a religious women "Paul's Catholic Church on the Lake." (Eugenides 8) and "Mrs. Lisbon we looked in vain for some sign of the beauty that must have once been hers. But the plump arms, the brutally cut steel-wool hair, and the librarian glasses foiled us every time" (Eugenides 8) Her description showing she's a strong women I believe.
     Cecilia is shown to be a spiritual person rather than religious. "...laminated picture of the Virgin Mary she held against her budding breasts." (Eugenides 4) instead of having Christ or a bible or something, she has the Virgin instead, adding that she drifts more away from the norms. "She came back still wearing the wedding dress." (Eugenides 15) and "She always wore the wedding dress and her bare feet were always dirty." (Eugenides 17) shows that she wears the same thing, like she's playing dress up all the time. showing that she is a dreamer.
      There is a small description  of the narrator and the neighbor boys at the party. "In blue blazers, with khaki trousers and clip- on neck ties." (Eugenides 24) But that's really it. There's no other names or anything to that.
     Cecilia is very distant and quiet during the party. "...she acted as though no one were there." (Eugenides 27) and "Through all this Cecilia remained on her stool." (Eugenides 28) showing she does not want to be there, that maybe she is thinking she's somewhere else.

Character: Section 2.

     In section 2, after Cecilia dies, this where we see that Cecilia was stressed before she died. "...hands with their bitten nails, her rough elbows, the twin prongs of her hips, and even her knees." (Eugenides 39) People who usually bit their nails show sigs that they have stress. When the boys get ahold of Cecilia's diary, they start to examine it, saying she's "Emotionally unstable." (Eugenides 41) The boys try to look to see if they were every mentioned in it "Cecilia had stared at everybody all the time, but she hadn't thought about any of us." (Eugenides 42). They seem like they're desperate to be noticed by any of the Lisbon girls. We find out that all the girls seem to want is to be matured- which they seem to be (I'll get to that later). "We never understood why the girls wanted to be mature," (Eugenides 43) I believe why they want to be matured is because they want to grow up, that they want to be able to live their lives however they want.
     The boys also believe that in someway they are connected with the girls, but also know nothing about them by reading the diary which shows the boys are very contradicting. "We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, and how it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up what colors went together." and  "We knew the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn't fathom them at all." (Eugenides 43). The girls are also shown as being complex people saying "We knew, finally, that the girls were women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them." (Eugenides 44). The complex events of love and death, are said that the Lisbon girls already knew, also showing that the boys were just there for the girls. That everyone was nobody if they weren't in the Lisbon group.
     "Little is known of Cecilia's state of mind on the last day of her life." (Eugenides 45). I think this shows that Cecilia was out of the norm, that this shows she was somewhat crazy.

Character: Section 3

     Father Moody is a priest at the Lisbon's church, he's very 2D and doesn't effect the story much but tells us the state of the Lisbon girls and their parents. Mr. Lisbon seems to be in denial, acting somewhat normal I believe. "Mr. Lisbon welcomed the cleric as he had other men, ushering him to a seat before the baseball game." (Eugenides 49). As you can see, he's not mourning the loss of his daughter and acting like nothing has happened. But on the next page we do see Mr. Lisbon start to crack and see the reality of what is happening but still tries to play it off as nothing had changed. "His eyes were watering. "Father," he said. "Double play ball, Father."" (Eugenides 50) Him crying and then talking about the game, only shows he knows he cant play this casual anymore. The girls, however, show their loss. "A half eaten sandwich sat atop the landing where someone had felt too sad to finish." (Eugenides 50) Showing that they're so struck with sadness that they cant even eat. ""They were sitting on the floor together, and I could tell they'd been crying. I think they were having some sort of slumber party. They had pillows all over. I hate to mention it and i remember scolding myself for even thinking it at the time, but it was mistakable: they hadn't bathed."" (Eugenides 52) The girls are so struct with grief they hadn't bathed, they probably hadn't been eating properly or rarely even left their room. That they just wanted to stay close to each other so they wouldn't lose anyone else.

     Trip Fontaine, a minor character and an admirer of Lux, is added to the story. Said to have "...had emerged from baby fat to the delight of girls and women alike." (Eugenides 69). Say in fact, Trip is a ladies man. Along with the example "We weren't on the lookout for handsomeness appearing in our midst, and believed it counted for little until the girls we knew, along with their mothers, fell in love with Trip Fontaine." (Eugenides 69). Trip shows to be manipulative towards girls because of his looks and charms. "The girls came bearing typed and footnoted term papers, "Chick Notes" they'd compiled so the Trip could read a single page on each book." (Eugenides 73).  It is shown, however, that he did love Lux using a flash forward. "Ive never gotten over that girl, man. Never." (Eugenides 75) It says directly that when Trip comes up the Lux that "No boy was ever so cool and aloof." (Eugenides 77) Basically, Trip is the coolest guy ever.

     It's shown that at first Lux has no interest in Trip Fontaine. "For a long time her resorted to his time-tested methods of attracting girls, brushing his hair back as Lux pass,or clomping his boots up on the desk top, and once he even lowered his tinted glasses to give her the boon of his eyes. But she didn't look." (Eugenides 80). Later Trip does come to the Lisbon house, with Mrs. Lisbon being a protective mother. "He sat on the couch beside Mrs. Lisbon, with Lux on her other side." (Eugenides 84). Her parting and not wanting Trip to sit by her daughter makes you think she wants to protect her daughter from boys.
     At home coming, Trip and Lux leave and have sex on the football field

Characters: Section 4

     After Lux misses curfew, the whole Lisbon home is put on lock down. Because of this imprisonment, you see the effect of isolation even if you cant see the girls. "A cloud always seemed to hover over the Lisbons' roof." (Eugenides 141). Also, we see that Lux has become more sexually active to cope with the cage their in. "A few weeks after Mrs. Lisbon shut the house in maximum- security isolation, the sighting of Lux making love on the roof began." (Eugenides 141). I see this as her trying to get through being alone and since Trip left her, to feel love. She- and along with the other girls- start to become thin from (what I suppose) the depression they're under. ""She had weird postcards taped up inside. Weird stuff. Couches and shit."" (Eugenides 142). Mary deals with her depression and showing that she wants to leave where she lives. "Lux had lost weight, though we couldn't tell through the binoculars. All sixteen mentioned her jutting ribs, the insubstantiality of her thighs, and one, who went up to the roof with Lux during a warm winter rain, told us the basins of her collarbones collected water." (Eugenides 147). Saying how much she's lost in weight, shows that she no longer cares about keeping her body healthy, that she doesn't care for herself. You also see Lux is a needy person for human touch. "Put it in. Just for a minute. It'll make us feel close." (Eugenides 149). Lux sees sex as love, like showing care for anyone, she needs that. She craves and thrives on it to cope with the isolation she's under,
     We see how the boys still praise Lux and still "believes" in her. "Though some of us saw Lux as a force of nature," (Eugenides 150). We see Mr. Lisbon start to feel bad for the state of his daughters, maybe even blaming himself. "His puffy red eyes that hardly opened anymore to see his daughters wasting away."  (Eugenides 160). The boys still see themselves connecting with the girls. "We could share their headaches from wolfing down ice cream." (Eugenides 163). and you can see they care for the girls. "Our concern increased when we visibly saw Bonnie wasting away." (Eugenides 164). The boys still show obsession for the girls. "No matter how religiously we meditated on them in our most private moments, lying in bed beside two pillows belted together to simulate human shape." (Eugenides 180). "Our songs, for the most part,  were love songs." (Eugenides 197). The boys are in love with the girls..

Character: Section 5.

     Section five is more about how the boys can not move on from the girls killing themselves. "It didn't matter how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them," (Eugenides 249) they still love the girls even though they're dead. Which in it's own way, the boys had loved the Lisbon girls more than anyone else had.