Watched the virgin suicides for
the first time. Filling in some puzzle pieces here...cascade of
problems. One goes, the others feel more trapped, scared of being
abandoned, being disowned by their parents. Sequentially one death
leads to more irrational blame bestowed on the other children by the
mother, and they fear their situation only should become worse...here
seemingly more sensible since one were talking about children or
adolescents whom hadn't shaped their own sense of independent
identities. Circumstance, situation, environment. Children blamed
irrationally for the death of other siblings, but it seems this could
be something of a surface read surrounding the events having
unfolded.
The other sense were that at least in
the initial case, one death were more a child/adolescent exploration
with mortality, and that such death at times incidentally results in
exactly what the child/adolescent were seeking. Cecelia hadn't
realized as much that death incidentally may be lurking. She
witnesses one boy toying with the idea of his mortality by way of his
passion, and thinks equally the outcome of a roulette with life and
death could equally be life itself with her? At least she must have
considered, like so much of youth neither bound by experience and
pragmatism in life, a sense of some passion. Cecilia is disturbed by
her present life. The coin tossing and repeated suggestion at beck
and call of repeated heads, suggests something of a determinism, the
certainty that adolescents should have regarding life and death, that
life were inextricably bound in the way of seeing life as inevitable
for those of youth and having some testing disregard of it, but
perhaps at some suggestion of determinism and inevitably, the plot
seems more biased and certain in so far as the dynamic and difference
between the sexes here. One empowered over the other. Cecelia's
first attempt suicide attempt fails, her next does not, and I would
suggest this is merely incidental. If the fence hadn't existed
proving fatal to her, she might have equally lived like the boy she
witnessed, having only suffered embarrassment and nothing worse
by it. Again leading to the differences between her circumstance and
the boy that she had witnessed. The boy were suffering from passion,
and were granted right to his emotions and passions, suggesting rite
of manhood and freedom. Again this were embedded and suggested more
subtly so as to draw the onlookers attention and predilection that
the boy jumping from his window were somewhat strange by today's
standards but really a humorous caricature. How often do men and
women now with certain boldness make sport of any number activities
that rarely should be criticized as suicidal itself(?)...Popular
outdoor adventurerist/climber/alpinist Jon Krakauer managed to
discuss more candidly the role of the something modern alpinist
phenomenon, they could rightly be suicidal, and with some liberty in
paraphrasing, they're given different moral license and virtue for
it. The same could be said for a something crazy hero that might
emerge motivated not be altruistic consideration in saving others but
nothing more then an adrenaline junkies looking for a fix. The
difference between good, right, and virtue here were justified by the
ends having been served. For example, exploration of death for the
soldier in wartime combat could be a noble cause (although you'd
probably be hard pressed to here him/her using this terminology
today), while a similar exploration for a suicidal teenage girl, a
major problem. While Cecilia's passions should hint of emotional
disturbance and something wrong in essence with her as a person, only
clearly defining a sense of sexism and bias. Joe appears on scene at
the party. He is made over by everyone in the party. She is incensed and embarrassed that her emotions and subsequent actions
have set her apart from others in the context that she is 'different'
relative to them. Perhaps she feels set aside, or that her life will
never by the same likewise? Cecelia's journal seems nearly dropped
to her witnesses (the boys), either as though she were proving to
others that anything were held to some greater mystery...thinking of
her first suicide attempt and holding a card of the Virgin Mary...and
here something of the novel/script suggests of the underlying
differences between the Lisbon girls remaining mysterious, hidden,
and unknowable to the boys of their age, and in some sense in a
timeless fashion suggested by the author and any ancient credit
therein. Had she felt distraught in some ways maybe having felt
revealed in the first suicide attempt, that anything of another
emotional current should be known by others that weren't revealed
even in her most private of journals, and having felt some sense of
betrayal in life by here passions being revealed? Also owing to the
traditions in ancient Greece suggestion of mysterious rites,
delineating of difference between by masculinity and femininity(?) Her
freedom and virtue it seems must exist neither in having shown her
passions outright but one that were held secretly as her own, never
written, never expressed about openly.
The outcome of life were illusory for
Cecelia, if not for the outcome of life for the Lisbon family by way
of foreshadowing. There is also suggestion of repression with
respect to taboo and forbidden ideas more obviously, a father better
equipped to emotionally talk to plants then speak honestly and
emotionally to his children, a mother emotionally unhinged in strong
and suggestive repressive undercurrents, at times severely
withdrawn, and other times overbearing...however, driven more so precipitously by the death of her daughter Ceclia. This seems to be a
common theme it seems in Greek tragedy's that emotional repression
leads to the most disastrous and obscene consequence, hinting that
even the playwrights must have acknowledged or poked fun at the
degree of identity and role taken on by men and women of their day.
Of course, often times story telling such as this were in design to
draw people emotionally into a writings and contains something of
exaggerated narrative, not that at times something of a resembling
reality might be found on occasion. Ultimately boundary and limits
should prevail in so far as one's emotional suffocation identified as
a source of spiritual and emotional suffering.
While Cecelia's death hadn't fully
precipitated the tragedies to come, it were Lux's metaphoric death
prior to a literal, fall from grace, having brought furthered
tragedy to the other girls. Again differences in sex, coming of age
for boy, sexual promiscuity acceptable while for the girls, this
should remain amongst other things untold, not talked about. One
could sense for the girls possibly some sense of shame, by way of the
scrutiny shown towards their family because of the Cecelia's suicide,
but only furthered by what were the gossip having circulated of Lux
and her having been an 'easy' conquest to Trip. Only the imagination
of the boys were driven so much of the girls repression, and what
interests would they have shown of the girls, if the girls weren't
locked in solitary, kept that much more from view, having remained
that much more unattainable. The boys hinted at their enchantment of
Cecelia so much that they deified her as an Indian goddess, and as to
the other girls, more were left to imagination. The girls should
equally versed in some manner of their own mystery power and
seduction, and this were in their having been removed well enough in
life from the boys, but having so easily seen interest faded when Lux
made herself so accessible to others. Whether the girls toyed with
the notion at first with the idea of suicide, remains hidden and unknown. Perhaps one committed suicide before the others reached
any pact, or they had, but just one remain committed enough, but
reality is different relative to once ideation now having been
substantiated. One supposes the others fear so much in life, having
been revealed that much more for previous fantasies, ideation,
emotional disturbances, dead to others, and Trip in retrospective
reflection suggesting his love and fascination with a girl since dead
from suicide more so then her being loved if she were living. One
could sense what Lux may have sensed of the culture of her times,
that girls all to accessible should seem all too uninteresting.
While it were hard to read anything of clear resentment for the other
Lisbon girls, where only a flash might have been shown by Ceclia, and
possibly Lux in some manner. Their fascination with dreams and
travel, should seem fitting to the idea that reality itself were
never in keeping. They weren't clearly resentful of the boundaries
drawn, or at least drawn into the alms of passive femininity, their
clearest expression of desire were removed. Authorship seems
ancient on this point attempting to portray more so an archetype of
a gender role. It seems the other Lisbon girls deaths would remain a
mystery likewise. Again one suspects the others felt emotional bound
in a point of no return, once their emotional pact were set into
motion, and Lux finally having felt some sense of guilt, hadn't
wanted to die, but her death were either in riding in the car forever
with the boys away from any previous inkling of a life forever, or
she should die then and there. It seems Lux wanted the boys to
witness and know something of the girls inner most truth...the boys
wouldn't be coming, however, only revolted with fear and shock, and
her life were over.
Period setting should seem plausible
here, but one should feel hard to know in so far as tangential
relation even to this provided context. Aside from the seeming
strange, bizarre, and often regarded notorious suicide pacts in
recent decades. More likely one should expect involving some cult of
one form other. Times in the eighties might have also served better
expressing the popularly expressed suicidal ideation whether found in
Ozzy Osbourne lyrics, or the lyrics of other contemporary popular
artists of such times. Most definitely a more modern context should
seem baseless in so far as describing the freedom and rights of child
adolescence and the differences between the sexes and traits of
personality. Today especially where it seems where more then ever at
times, gender and roles have blurred between the sexes.
