The Virgin Suicides and the Suburban Ideal: How the American Dream Became Obsolete Anonymous College

The dramatic comedy The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides, is a controversial novel that revolves around the suicide of the Lisbon daughters. These five young ladies seek to end their lives as they lived them: together. With traces of cult-like behavior these girls are watched by the community with curiosity; though, it is specifically the boys of their neighborhood that narrate the events preceding and following their deaths. Eugenides’ novel was published in 1993, the beginning of the grunge era; the nineties saw the rise of emotional, angsty musicians like Nirvana, Alanis Morissette, Oasis, and a plethora of others who were singing about the dark places many of these teenagers felt they were in. The nineties also saw a spike in suburban living as parents packed their families up and moved them to a middle class wonderland (Schneider). This is where we find Eugenides’ main characters, struggling through life in suburbia just outside of Detroit. As we follow the boys and their tale of the Lisbons, it becomes clear how the Suburban Ideal was quickly transformed into the Suburban Nightmare.

A main focus of this essay and The Virgin Suicides is the mundane; how middle class parents believed that the lack of excitement in the...