The death of the Lisbon girls represented a failure of the entire community, shattering

into pieces the so-called American dream. Their suicide revealed that the American suburban life
was only a mask, an illusion, a cover up for hypocrisy, for the absence of compassion and
communication. The lack of communication is evident not only in the girls relationship with
their parents, but also in their impossibility to create a bond with other teenagers, boys or girls
and even between adults who cannot or refuse to establish a connection to the Lisbons after
Cecilias death because of their prejudices and hypocrisy. The interest in the Lisbon girls is just a
matter of curiosity, of scandal, of gossip, not one of real concern, care, friendship or love.
The action is placed in an almost perfect suburban setting with houses of similar
architecture and style, with adults and children who always have a smile and a hello for their
neighbors; with people who decorate their houses before Christmas or who attend the Spring
cleaning. The readers would not suspect that behind these perfect images of tranquility or behind
these scenes of general bliss and happiness, a perfect example for a community, terrible things
such as death, suffering, and violence can occur, Its mundane familiarity and uniformity act as
an universal space of nostalgia for the experience of childhood at the same time as it provides an
innocuous veneer for the horror and mystery that reside behind the leafy foliage and the walls of
the pleasant houses. (
). Most of the readers would agree with the statement above
in the sense that the collective narrative voice of the novel renders the impression of regret over
the lost of childhood and the passage of the years, even over the experiences of adolescence that
they shared with the five sisters, but the purpose of the setting cannot be only reduced to the
nostalgia of childhood. It is an eloquent example for the decay of suburbia and American
community.
The idyllic setting in the beginning suffers a lot of transformations as the girls gradually
drift away from their parents, from their friends, from the entire neighborhood and community.
The more powerful the girls alienation from the world is, the more damaged is the exterior. The
lack of communication between the girls and their parents and the pain and suffering of both the
Lisbon girls and their parents is visible in the state of the Lisbon house. Mrs. Lisbon does not
take care of the house anymore. The rooms are dirty, things are thrown everywhere, home
cooked meals are replaced by cans of food. There is absolutely no order reflecting basically the
chaos that dominates the Lisbons lives. As the instability of the girls and the gap between them
and the community grows larger and larger, the deterioration of the house and of the setting is
being emphasized. The house is almost in ruins, but Mr. Lisbon does not do anything in order to
repair it because it is impossible to fix the exterior if the interior is so severely damaged. The
beautiful garden of the Lisbons is also in a state of decay and disorder. Not even nature can
escape the disease that seems to have infested the Lisbon family and the community. The tree cut
off because being infested with a deadly virus symbolizes the imminent destruction of the family.
The girls attempts to stop the cutting are just futile actions that cannot prevent the tragic and
unstoppable outcome. The girls are certain victims and the signs are evident both inside and
outside, but nobody in the community interferes although they all notice the signs. The entire
community is numb as if everything for what the community used to stand for has suddenly
disappeared, while the girls are the embodiment of the decay, The Lisbon girls have the stature
of prophets announcing a decaying future for their suburb, their city and the whole world. They
sensed it so powerfully that they chose to never have to face it in real life. (..)
The lack of communication between the girls and the rest of the community and
the failure of community is undoubtedly a consequence of the lack of communication in the
Lisbon family since family is the basis of community and society. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon are strict
1

parents with a clear set of rules that the girls have to follow and accept. In the Lisbon family the
generation gap is immense and the lack of communication stresses the conflicts between the
parents and the girls, the author inclining to blame the parents or the adults for the tragic
outcome of the sisters Indeed, one of the most interesting things in this novel is the breaking of
the usual pattern concerning who is right, who is wiser and more mature. Thus, parents, grownups are completely wrong, superficial and unable to grasp the true nature and meaning of things
around them, whereas teenagers are the ones who hold the truth (or truths). (
It does seem that teenagers are the ones who hold the truth, but the statement is
not appropriate for all teenagers. Basically, it seems that the only ones who understand the
importance of communication are the Lisbon girls and they try to reach it by all the possible
means, but the others are not able to notice or to recognize it, not even the boys. The boys are
interested in the girls because they are surrounded by mystery and because they cannot reach
them very easily. They manufactured a rather ideal version of the girls which cannot be sustained
by reality. Even when the contact between them occurs, it is only superficial. There is no real and
authentic communication. The boys interest in the girls is triggered by curiosity and not by
feelings of compassion and affection. The lack of communication between them is obvious in the
boys futile attempt to recreate the past and to render the image of the girls. They managed to
render an incomplete and superficial image of the Lisbon girls due to the fact they were not able
to grasp their inner thoughts, to explore and to understand their most intimate feelings. Their
inability to comprehend them was a consequence of their inability to communicate and to create
a real bond with the girls. The bond would have been possible if only the boys had been truly
interested in discovering the girls and in helping them, but their first intentions and their next
ones focused on revealing the truth after the girls suicides were very similar to the other peoples
intentions in the community, who were all attracted by the sensationalist nature of the case. Thus,
the tragic death of the Lisbon girls was reduced to a sensational and scandalous act, If anything,
the sisters deaths are a temporary diversion from other societal concerns. (
Community does not function as a pole that sustains its members. On the contrary, the
text makes clear that the suburban community is a place of failed dreams, illusions and
isolation. (
American suburbs are regarded or at least used to be regarded as the
accomplishment of the American dream. Suburban life was synonymous with happiness,
tranquility, all in all, an idyllic life, but the paradigm has changed, especially in the case of the
Midwest. Perceived as Americas heartland, the Midwest envisions a territory consisting of
families, who for generations have owned their farms, as well as of small towns whose
inhabitants are provincial, ingenuous, and generally optimistically inclined and function as the
moral and social mediators between the otherwise culturally much more diversified regions in
the U.S. . (
A similar aspect can be seen at the surface even in the Virgin Suicides, but going deeper it
becomes clear that this American dream and the myth of the ideal Midwestern life has turned
into a real nightmare. Behind the happy scenery, there are boredom, routine, endless
disappointments which are hidden by hypocrisy and false appearances. Uniformity, stereotypes
and standardization are emphasized. Those who are different and refuse to adopt the principles of
the suburbia are marginalized. The exact phenomenon occurs with the Lisbon girls. Lux, Cecilia
and their sisters are not products of the suburban pattern. They are different personalities who
need their freedom in order to discover their own identities, but the strict conduct rules deprive

them from their rights. There is no other escape from this futile and meaningless life than
suicide.
All in all, American suburban life seems to be only a shadow of the idyllic Garden of
Eden that it used to represent. The lack of communication between people, hypocrisy,
selfishness seem to be the words that define suburbia. In such an environment even the dreams of
childhood and adolescence cannot resist. Thus, no authentic bond can be established, not even
between children and their parents.

Bibliography