Lisbon Girls Analysis

The Lisbon Girls passively suffer through their lives, never fighting against their world, on the contrary, Esther actively fights back against her world and creates conflict within her own mind. Together these novels reveal the roles of passivity and action in modern day suffering. Mrs. Lisbon and the stereotypes of white suburbia challenge the Lisbon girls. Unfortunately, their extremely passive father and the narrators of the novel will not take any sort of action to save them. Mrs. Lisbon commands Lux Lisbon, the most rebellious of the sisters, to “destroy all of her rock records” (Eugenides 138). Lux “[appeals] for Mrs. Lisbon’s mercy” for “album after album”, until she loses them all to her mother’s authority (Eugenides 138). After Lux’s

homecoming, her one night of rebellion, Mrs. Lisbon whips her back into the subordinate role as her daughter, forcing her to conform even more to all of society’s standards. The male narrators serve to represent the “whole community” of “voyeuristic observers” who, nonetheless, live their life as “bystanders” to the “death drive” and “deterioration” of these young women (Kostova). The Lisbon Girls have no one actively pulling for them; they are stuck in a passive world where they take whatever comes their way. In Esther’s case, her suffering belongs to her, and she has Jay Cee, her mother, her doctors, and Joan pulling for her success. Esther is smart and pretty, the two traits her peers believe can conquer the world, but she lacks the mental stability to pursue any life goal. She constantly feels she has “nothing to look forward to”, and rather than grateful for her “many figs”, she feels as if she will “[starve] to death” because she cannot choose only one (Plath 117,77). Esther’s conflict differs from the Lisbon’s because she actively fights against her mind as the world pressures her. Perhaps Esther’s mind is more of a curse, because the world gave her a brilliant mind, but plagued her with the incapability to decide on and pursue a greater life. The Lisbons suffer passively through their worlds with no hope of a life beyond their dark sisterhood, while Esther actively fights against herself knowing she has the potential for a greater life. This difference in the protagonist’s mentalities may guide their lives in different ways.
In a last exposure to their worlds, Mary Lisbon and Esther do not have their original identities and, for the first time in their life, they face the task of developing a sense of self. After Esther goes to live in the asylum and the Mary survives the Lisbon girls group suicide attempt, both of them must reevaluate themselves. In her string of suicide attempts, Esther feels a connection to the “sweeping tide” that “rushes her to sleep” when she is close to death; until she finds this same feeling when the “darkness” of Electroconvulsive therapy, “the use of drugs or electricity to treat sever mental disorder by inducing coma or convulsions”, “[wipes] her out like chalk on a chalkboard” and awakens her to the “fresh, blue-skied air” (“Electroconvulsive Therapy”; Plath 169, 214-215). After all of the world’s pressure being compressed in Esther’s little “bell jar”, she finally feels “purged” of all her “heat and fear”, feeling “peace” and “circulating air” as the bell jar “[suspends] a few feet above [her] head” (Plath 215). Mary “[sleeps] late, [speaks] little, and [takes] six showers a day”, clearly avoiding her parents and “Mr. Hedlie [barging] into the house” and throwing out “anything that belonged to the girls” while he put up “FOR SALE” and “GARAGE SALE” signs (Eugenides 224). After all her sisters have left her, Mary experiences all of their memories being ripped out of the house they grew up in, and sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor. Her parents do not offer her any help or any love, they only want forget the entire event. Because Esther had serious therapists working with her, and Mary has no one considering her emotional pain, the authors take their protagonists to extremely different endings. In Esther’s institution, “receiving food symbolizes […] she is recovering”, because those who eat breakfast do not require Electroconvulsive therapy, so when Esther is set free from her virginity she is “greedy for butter” and drinks the “herb-green juice” from an “empty snail shell” (Smith, Plath 227). To Esther, this decadent dining symbolizes her freedom. With the “dull asylum diet” behind her; she is a new woman, no longer a virgin, and no longer hungry (Plath 227). As Esther steps into her new life following the “magical thread” of her doctors, the “EMS truck […] [does not] bother to use the siren” and “[finds what they were looking for: [Mary] in a sleeping bag, and full of sleeping pills” (Plath 244, Eugenides 231-232). While doctors guide and support Esther, Mary succumbs into the predictable nature of suburbia. The EMS drivers casually pick her up, as if everyone knew she would die and the knowledge of such makes teen suicide less tragic. In the end, the Lisbons could never escape their prison-like family, or their strict and careless community. Esther’s ending is “ambiguous”, she reaches closure, but the reader wonders if her world will punish her again (Smith).
Eugenides and Plath write intricate life stories about complex characters.

But, if we lived in those worlds, would we realize what these writers make us see? In my youth, I knew a boy named Jack; we called him ‘Sunshine’, for his curly blond hair. He played varsity football at Lamar High School, and he was my brother’s best friend. I grew up with Jack; he became my third older brother. I was his second little sister, who would braid his hair and tell him to get the mop on his head cut so he looked less like Chewbacca, and more like a boy. In my 11 years with Jack, he was always upbeat, a total clown, and very smart. Both of his parents worked, and one day, Jack stayed home from school, found his father’s gun, and shot himself in the mouth. We all hypothesized he must have had depression, but the feelings only set in when he was alone. As a ten year old, I could not have been more confused. My best friends father had died a month before, so I wondered why a 16-year old died at the same time as a 42-year old. Naturally, everyone wanted to know why this seemingly happy boy made this decision. Berger says adolescents “[indicate] they are going to commit suicide” through an “essay, poem, or drawing” (Berger). Although my family never saw signs before his death, Jack left two letters by his side – one for his mom, and one for a girl. At the funeral, my family heard this girl was Jacks confidant, and she chose not to tell anyone because he told her to keep it a secret. She gave him what he wanted, not what he needed. After reading The Virgin Suicides and The Bell Jar, I have more thoughts on the situation than myself at 11 years old. Jacks friend made a horrible mistake, but so did the narrators and community of The Virgin Suicides. If they would have stepped in, could the girls have gotten help? If this girl had spoke up, would my non-blood brother still be alive? However, maybe Jack felt the same as Esther: “[his] case was incurable” (Plath 159). The facts are, I do

not know what would have happened if the girl would have told. Maybe Jack’s mind was twisted too much to ever be normal again, just like Esther and the Lisbon girls.