The Virgin Suicides - Style and Point-of-view

Style and Point-of-view

The story is told by an anonymous narrator in the first person plural. The narrator is one or all of a group of adolescent boys who obsessed over the Lisbon girls from a distance in their youth, and now, as middle-aged men, continue to try to piece together the girls' story. Several of the boys are mentioned by name, but the narration never slips into first-person singular and the speaker's identity remains unclear.

The narrative looks back on the time when the boys knew and loved the Lisbon girls, who continue to haunt them in adulthood. The men keep in touch with each other to continue to be the "custodians of the girls' lives", and the subject of the girls always comes up when they "run into each other at cocktail parties or business luncheons."

Still in mourning, the group treasures a collection of "evidence" they have gathered ("Exhibits Nos. 1-97") concerning the Lisbons. It includes Cecilia's diary, family photographs and personal objects from the girls' rooms. Due to their connection with the Lisbon girls, many of the objects are seen as having an almost religious quality. Indeed the entire point of view reveals the reader to be part of this act of childhood voyeurism made innocent by the eventual deaths of the girls. The girls are very well aware of their viewers and are complicit in their participation as 'suicidal exhibitionists' and in this way the novel proves to be much darker than even the title suggests.

The narrators refer to several interviews they have conducted with people who lived in the neighborhood during the time of the Lisbon suicides. Some are people who played a prominent role in the story (Mr. Lisbon and an aging, substance-addicted Trip Fontaine) and some are merely onlookers, such as an old drunk who lived across from the Lisbons and a teacher who was the neighborhood's sole Communist. All the people mentioned in the novel—amounting to more than 150 names—become witnesses to, and commentators on, the tragedy that befalls the Lisbon family.

It remains unclear whom the narrative chorus is addressing. Though it sometimes seems as though the mourners have collected all their memorabilia and conducted their interviews for some official purpose, this is never made clear. In their attempt to understand who the Lisbon girls were and why they committed suicide, they never find a truly satisfying answer. But the entire novel, meanwhile, paints a poignantly sharp and critical portrait of the suburban American life experienced by the baby-boom generation.