Virgin Suicides Themes

Mrs. Lisbon's response to the dangers of the world is to isolate her daughters. At first she just seems like an overprotective mother, but over time she loses perspective, pulling her daughters out...

In The Virgin Suicides, suffering isn't associated with any sort of physical problem. There's no war, starvation, or beatings; their pain is emotional. It's clear that life is unbearably painful fo...

For the group of boy-narrators in The Virgin Suicides, anything having to do with girls or women is both an absolute mystery and a source of utter fascination. They're obsessed with learning the wa...

There's a lot of death to deal with in The Virgin Suicides. In fact, even though there are only five sisters, there are seven suicide attempts in the novel—the girls aren't always successful on t...

The Lisbon family are the only ones on their street who attend church. The devout Catholic mother tries to keep her five daughters in line, only allowing them to attend church and school after they...

In some ways The Virgin Suicides is kind of an anti-coming-of-age novel. Its protagonists are all on the cusp of adulthood, ranging in age from thirteen to seventeen. Unfortunately, they don't make...

The Lisbon girls all have their eccentricities, like wearing old wedding dresses, keeping lab goggles on in the hall, or protesting the cutting down of the diseased tree in their front yard. Don't...

Time to get steamy. For the Lisbon sisters, sex is either totally rejected and suppressed (no makeup, no dating, baggy dresses), or completely out of control (Lux's voracious sexual appetite). Ther...