Virgin Suicide Symbolism

The shocking story of a group of sisters killing themselves in a neighborhood called Suburbia, located just outside of Detroit, portrays what is called a peaceful image of a utopia for Scandinavian families. Jeffrey Eugenides, the author of The Virgin Suicides expresses many interpretations of what the suicides symbolize and how these actions effect the neighborhood. One could say that these suicides serve as a distraction upon daily life of the people in the neighborhood as well as foreshadowing the neighborhood deteriorating as the novel slowly unravels. As the neighbors draw their attention away from social and societal issues, the lack of empathy is revealed, which leads to the downfall of the community through the symbolic meaning of trees

The boys in the neighborhood describes the relationship that relates to the sense of destruction through the symbol of trees, “like us, the girls [Lisbon sisters] has distinct memories tied to carious bushes, trees, and garage doors” (119). Form early on, the symbol of trees is portrayed as an important aspect that foreshadows the future. The girls give a warning or an introduction to reality that the neighborhood is going to fall into pieces and that their memories left behind, would be the girls who disrupted the peaceful utopia. However, the boys portrays them as girls who foreshadowed the future and woke everyone up to reality. This symbolic meaning of trees is carried through the end of the novel when “we got to see how truly unimaginative our suburb was, everything laid out on a grid whose bland uniformity the trees have hidden…” (237). The explanation of trees portrayed in this quote represents that the trees are like masks that hides the identity of the neighborhood. The neighbors are trying to hid the “unappealing” parts of the neighborhood and they begin working their hardest to preserve their peace once again by taking trees and letting them grow. However, the city takes over and all is lost in their plan to preserve peace, “the Parks Department continued to cut down trees, removing a sick elm to save the remaining twenty, removing another to save the remaining nineteen, and so on and so on…” (237). These trees being removed is the ultimate destruction that symbolizes the neighborhood being uncovered and revealing the reality to those who are protecting their children in this environment. As the parks department removes the trees because they are diseased, not only does mask of this peaceful utopia causing the neighborhood to deteriorate, but they also represent the Lisbon