is The Virgin Suicides more about suicide or virginity?

As I have discussed, I found many parallels between The Virgin Suicides (movie) and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The blurb on the back of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides would lead one to believe that the once-off party held at the Lisbons' house is central to the story - which would have worked well with my preconceptions, however I don't think is the case. I could have linked nicely the excursion to hanging rock and the house party - both representative of a rare excursion for strictly kept girls where the problems of sexuality and men might reveal themselves. The Virgin Suicides, however seems to be about much more, at least at a semi-conscious level (who knows how many hidden meanings are in Picnic?)

From my understanding, the book has two potential foci. 1) The virgin suicides: why? what are the connexions between virginity and suicide? etc; and 2) The voyeuristic attention paid by the boys across the street; Or perhaps these themes can and are meant to be reconciled?

2) The boys (i'll use the term collectively even though there is a distinguishable narrator) collect items from the girls' lives, treasuring Lux's bra, a photo of her cervix, pictures of the virgin Mary that Cecilia clung to in a bloody bathtub, doctors' reports etc. The obsession seems somewhat unhealthy, almost paedafilic, since the story is told retrospectively and the girls cannot age - there also seems to be mention of the house beginning to smell like "trapped beaver"...? We could blame this on Eugenides's own thoughts being tendered, however it is more likely that the perturbation that comes through from the narrator is a result of the incomprehensibility and fascination with the event. Pressing further (it would probably be appropriate to use some kind of metaphor here about vagina's but I'm not sure I could pull it off), the disparity between how the boys see the girls and how the girls clearly see themselves could perhaps be key to the suicides themselves. This ties in nicely with Cecilia's statement after her first suicide attempt (wrists) "clearly doctor, you don't know what it's like to be a 13-year-old girl.

The girls, because there are five of them and because their parents are strict, are objectified and distorted by the typical suburban American community. Lux (labelled promiscuous... but I think this adjective is misleading) is sought after by Trip: he pines after her for almost a year until finally scoring with her on the football field, afterwhich (of course) he's a bit sick of her because she confides that she always ruins everything.

When focusing on the boys and their perceptions, memories, I felt constantly confronted and annoyed with their authenticity. This is somewhat acknowledged, when it is realised that the boys were too interested in deciphering and marvelling at the call for help to respond to it. Alas, this is not atypical of suicide in general.

1) Virginity is referred to in different ways throughout - The Virgin Suicides is an old rock song, but Cecilia also held a picture of the Virgin Mary (apparently it should have been Jesus - therefore she's a devil worshipper), and things like Virgin oil pop up now and again. It's difficult to know whether we should be looking at the suicides as representative of suicide in general, perhaps even a code for something else, or whether we should succumb to the reality of the book and be intrigued by the 5.

The book explores the theme of suicide quite well, capturing the alienation that follows a suicide attempt, the despair of loved ones dealing with suicide and indeed the varying reactions that people can have. When trying to accept the mass suicide, one has to expel the crazy theories of infexion and cults etc, and try to deal with what this type of mass suicide really means. However in some ways, the idea is quite convincing - a girl attempts suicide because (this is a massive simplification) she is frustrated in confronting the world as a teenage girl. The response to this is inadequate, with those close to her acting strangely, distancing themselves, so she finishes the job. The sisters, whilst trying to make sense of the terrible loss, are also gradually ostracised from society, until they can no longer reconcile themselves with a future. The depressive moods fester and then finally it is suggested - it's not uncommon for suicidal teens to seek affirmation for the act or to find people complacent with its planning.

The tragedy, is that little can be made of the girls. We are given barely a glimpse of their persona's, shrouded as they are by the distorted impressions of others. The misconceptions of the neighbours, the town and the country, seem only to support the worth of the girls' decisions. Why bother living in a world that seems so stupid and oblivious?

Virginity at Hanging Rock

I read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay as part of my general goal to read more women writers (having very few encounters, one of which was Winterson... who I disliked, probably a little too much). Joan Lindsay was related to the great print-maker Norman Lindsay from central Victoria, who despite doing some fine nudes and lovely prints, also drew a great many cartoons to promote the White Australia policy and a few other undesirable trends of the time. So, written and set at this time, it has the realist style - lots of description. Lindsay also mentions many of the fashions of the day, without irony, such as the tendency for women to be pretty useless. Reflecting only on the narrative, I'm not quite sure one is meant to get out of this book.

However ... : before reading the book, I had seen the film and discussed it with my father (who at some stage managed to be an English teacher... despite failing in Year 12 because he didn't like the teacher). Whereas I had seen the movie, thinking about whether it was a true story and getting caught up in the mystery, he drew my attention to a few of its subtler themes: specifically, that of sexuality.

The story, is of course set during a fairly conservative period in Australia's history. Girls were meant to be proper, deferring sex to their eventual marriages. So what seems like a fairly trivial outing to the Hanging Rock, is made more significant by the fact that these young girls will be leaving (temporarily) the confines of the school, interact with the male driver, and potentially even more males. So an important concern of the head mistress, once the strange event occurs, is whether these girls will come back "in tact". Abduction, rape and murder are scarcely considered as possibilities, and the town, to some extent seems to accept that the girls strangely disappeared, and isn't it a shame because a couple of them were quite pretty and now they won't become wives and if they come back their reputations won't be so hot anyway.

Tied to the importance of sex (and lack thereof) is the properness of the head mistress and her absurd lack of compassion for the girls in her school, focusing as she does on the potential reduction in numbers that might result from the rumours concerning the picnic at Hanging Rock - she drives a young girl, who likes drawing to suicide, because the girl doesn't fit her conception of a young, proper and pretty girl.

Also of note is perhaps the banality of the male hero, deciding that since the girl that missing was so pretty he must set out to find her - himself being terribly disappointed when a different, slightly less pretty girl does happen to turn up!

So although I remember the book as being reasonably dry, there is certainly plenty to take in, and it will always perhaps be an important book in Australia's - particularly Victoria's - history. I have never been quite able to articulate it properly, but the book reminds me a lot of The Virgin Suicides. These undercurrents of young, female sexuality seem to be present in both - with an eventual notion that no-one really does quite understand what it means to be a young girl (paraphrasing from the film). Both stories seem to focus on young girls and that imposed notion of "womanhood". The girls are not so caught up in challenging this notion, but rather seem to quietly continue outside it, shaking their heads in pity at the idiots who think they have any idea.