Citation

Lopes E. Anglo Saxonica 2018; (15): 91-116.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

The Virgin Suicides (1993), by Jeffrey Eugenides, offers us a look at an ordinary American suburban neighborhood whose quietness is disrupted by the Lisbon girls' suicide. The first sister who commits suicide is Cecilia. A year later, her sisters Lux, Bonnie, Therese and Mary follow her example. The neighbourhood teenage boys, who are mesmerized by the sisters, are heavily stricken by these events. The plot revolves around the boys' mission which is to disclose the motifs underlying the sisters' premature deaths. Their investigation is thwarted because the girls remain forever out of their reach. In the same manner that it is impossible to underscore the dark reasons at the origin of the suicides, the boys are incapable of rescuing the girls from their tragic end. Following Cecilia's death, the quiet house in the suburbs starts to metamorphose into a haunted and doomed space, thus disfiguring the harmonious geography of the little Michigan suburb. The challenge of this essay is to analyse the impact of this shift, and how it contributes to posit The Virgin Suicides in the Gothic tradition. In order to fulfill this task, Gothic tropes such as the monster, the haunted house, familiar tensions, femininity and nature will be under the scope so as to shed light upon one of the darkest novels featuring life in the apparently quiet American suburbs of the 1970s. © 2018 Anglo Saxonica. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Femininity; Gothic; Haunted house; Lisbon sisters; Suburbs