Psychological Anaylsis of the Virgin Suicides

Novels ease up more to them than meet the eye. Past the cover and the first read, there is yet an extra element involved in superb books. Jeffery Eugenides clearly had an understanding of this. Written in 1991, The Virgin Suicides is not right a story. Bizarre, abnormal, and tragic is how Jeruen Dery describes the book in his review of it. As more than pages in a cover, The Virgin Suicides has some magic to uncover. To fully understand a novel, one must recognize a precritical response to key element that quantity to a written work of art. The setting of the novel is one that is familiar to valet de chambrey Ameri domiciliates.In essence, it is a modern suburbia, complete with y fall outh, adults, and the elderly, along with the old, and the new. This directly contributes to the plot, which involves a man versus baseball club struggle with more than one set of characters. Two main sets of characters are prevalent and neither host show purely protagonist or antagonist characte ristics. Both the capital of Portugal girls and the neighborhood boys share the two roles throughout the duration of the novel. When reacting to the structure of the novel, one notices the straightforwardness of the piece.After a glance at the annul events, the rest of the book goes through the progression of a year in chronological order while also following a typical emergent action-climax-falling action format. The style of the book keeps a continuous flow throughout the piece. The words are sophisticated, as well as the general structure of the sentences and the elan they flow together. The words and sentence structure contribute to the atmosphere of the work as a whole. In his review of the piece, Dery says, Every aspect of the novel is scarce dark, and contributes to the overall macabre mood of the piece. The general theme of the novel faces to be how suicide doesnt only affect those who are directly involved, such as family, teachers, and close friends. It shows how suic ide affects the entire community. While reading the novel, a particular set of characters caught my eye. The narrators have what would be a textbook definition of irresistible impulse with the Lisbon girls. They are more than just teenage boys being obsessed with teenage girls. In their case, this is not just a normal obsession like society thinks of today, but something much more psychological than that. This obsession is more of a disorder.By the words of Alex Lickerman obsession is a giant tidal wave that crashes through our minds and washes past all other concerns. In an article from Psych Central symbols of an obsession disorder include preoccupations with organization, lists, or rules, unable to discard old or worn out items, and has a consciousness of specific details. The neighborhood boys display all of these things. Their preoccupations with organization are clear throughout the novel when looking at how they kept leash of the girls things through a numbering system si milar to that of police evidence.They are also seemingly unable to discard the things they collected from the girls. A third symptom appears through the entire work as a whole, because the boys are speaking as though all of these events took place many years ago, yet they seem to remember almost every detail of the year of the suicides. Just through these symptoms, it is clear that the boys have an obsession with the Lisbon girls, even into their adulthoods. The American Psychiatric fellowship characterizes obsessions as,irrational thoughts which keep reoccurring. In the conclusion of the book, the boys are going over a summary of the year and they admit to this kind of behavior. They even kind of send the behavior on the girls by saying, They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldnt help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that no(prenominal) of them lead to us, (Eugenides 248). This statement shows an obvious obsession with the Lisbon gi rls. Therefore, one can see that the neighbor hood boys have an obsession that goes further than just a stereotypical teenage obsession. The other set of characters also have a psychological disorder of sorts.With the exception of Cecilia, the other four Lisbon girls appear to have Post Traumatic striving Disorder (PTSD). People acquire PTSD by living through a traumatic event in their life. In the case of Lux, Mary, Bonnie, and Therese, the event that sparked the disorder was not a single event, but two with one common source. The first being Cecilias wrist moorage and hospital stay. The second is the actual event of her death. Characteristics of PTSD include staying away from places and things that remind one of what happened, feeling alone, and outbursts of acts which are normally out of character.The girls all displayed these in the time between Cecilias death and theirs. The narrators have told us through a number of different ways that the girls felt alone as a group. They a re pictured as being alone together, meaning that the four of them feel as though they are the only ones that understand themselves. The girls also submit in activities that seem out of character compared to who the rest of the community thought they were. In Luxs case this is the high amount of sexual activity. For the group as a whole, it is clinging together, not having other friends, and staying in the house and complying with their parents.For the most part the girls seem so uninterested in the activities of their peers it seems as though they died with Cecilia. some other characteristic of PTSD is having suicidal tendencies according to the case Center for PTSD. In conclusion, one can see how the Lisbon girls developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the death of Cecilia. When looking at the evidence presented, it is clear that the two main groups of characters have psychological disorders. In the case of the neighborhood boys, their obsession with the Lisbon girls goe s further than just being interested.This becomes apparent when one compares the boys with textbook symptoms of obsession disorders. Lux, Mary, Bonnie, and Therese also have a psychological disorder. In their case it is PTSD. This can be proven when examining the year leading up to their death under a lens filtered with the characteristics of PTSD. Because of these facts we are able to see how The Virgin Suicides is more than just a story about five girls deaths told by the boys they grew up with. As one can see, the novel is more than meets the eye. Works Cited American Psychiatric Association. apprehension Disorders. Www. Psychiatry. rg. American Psychiatric Association, 2012. Web. 30 Mar. 2013. Dery, Jeruen. Book Review The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. Blogcritics Books. Technorati Inc. , 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2013. Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. New York Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993. Print. Lickerman, Alex, M. D. Obsession. Www. psychologytoday. com. Suss ex Publishers, LLC, 26 Apr. 2010. Web. 30 May 2013. PsychCentral Staff. neurotic Personality Disorder PsychCentral. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder PsychCentral. PyschCentral, 1 June 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2013. Suicide and PTSD. NATIONAL CENTER for PTSD. United States Department of Veteran Affairs, 1 Jan. 2007. Web. 30 Mar. 2013. The National Institute of Mental Health, and National Institutes of Health. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Easy-to-Read). NIMH RSS. National Institutes of Health, 15 June 2012. Web. 30 Mar. 2013. U. S. National Library of Medicine, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, and National Institutes of Health. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder MedlinePlus. U. S National Library of Medicine. U. S. National Library of Medicine, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.