The Virgin Suicides Essay

Probable Causes of the Virgin Suicides

Suicide is a sensitive issue in American society because it carries many negative connotations and has a lasting result on surviving members of the community. The victim’s family and friends will have a tough time during the grieving process since the causes of suicide are usually hard to identity and address. The film “The Virgin Suicides” portray an emotionally torn family after the youngest sister commits suicide that leads to national attention. The family is mainly run by a devout Christian mother and operates under a very strict and limiting moral code.
The family environment can be blamed for causing all the sisters to committing suicide. The primary reason for blaming the household is since
all the sisters had to suffer because of the restrictions set by their overbearing mother. All of the sisters seem to have limited and highly biased perspective view toward the outside world. They were never able to see the opposite sex without the consent of both parents and thus had to suffer a lot socially by having minimal friends. It is a miracle that most of the girls didn’t have any emotional problems until their youngest sister committing suicide. Most of them only interacted with other peers during school and didn’t have any interaction with the outer world besides magazine and music.
It must have been very difficult to talk about their problems only with their family and not having a source that had a different perspective on the issue. I am assuming that the local priest or father was a substitute for a therapist, even though he doesn’t have any formal background or knowledge to treat mental illnesses. It is definitely too late for the youngest sister when she finally saw a therapist since it was clear that she was in severe depression and needed urgent medical help. No one saw any signs since the mother restricted their access to information and everyone in the household was ignorant. Even if the sisters wanted to get other help it would have been very difficult since they were always under supervision.
Their situation was definitely worsened after Lux’s actions after the dance lead to their whole household being on lockdown. Now they were total prisoners of their mother and weren’t even allowed to go to school. This would have lead to many of them being sick of life from being a prisoner and having a restricted life. They bought travel magazines to show that many of them wanted to escape and enjoy freedom. The situation in the film is very unique since all sisters were experiencing the same conditions which probably lead to them thinking and taking the same actions. They all wanted to leave the over controlling household since it is natural for people to dislike restrictions on their freedom. It also doesn’t help that the last experience they had outside the household was the dance. Many of them were emotionally ruined by their dates which would have been a sore reminder of their reality.
The suicides were a final act of rebellion and statements towards their family and public.
Lux even has a cigarette in her hand when she kills herself in the garage to remind their mother that they won’t be prisoners of her outdated and controlling actions. It is likely that most of the girls would have been depressed since they were prevented from enjoying life outside the house and were stuck with each other every day. They had to have talked about all their problems and situation which would have impacted all of them. It is known fact that pessimistic attitude can spread if one individual is always draining on the others. I am assuming that Lux would have been really down after her suppose soul mate used and left her after the dance. Her sisters were there to witness and maybe conclude that no one can be trusted in or outside of the household and that they were all helpless and stuck in their situation forever. The only reasonable solution would have been to escape or commit suicide. They decided to end all their lives together since they were motivated by each other and gained courage from group think and action. Many mass suicides happen since every member are encouraged to go through with the process because of the motivation gained from others. I believe that Lux is emotionally strong enough to handle the breakup so she would have made it through their mother’s controlling household, but I think she committed suicide since she couldn’t deal with the guilt and consequences after all her sisters were to commit suicide. The event happened since all these probably causes came together to motivate the sisters to finally take action and end their miserable
condition.