The Virgin Suicides: A Really, Really, Really, Really Dark Comedy?

I was pretty shocked after having read the first few chapters of The Virgin Suicides. The abruptness of the suicides, the way in which they are described, and other characters' reactions to them are off-putting, disturbing, and wildly irreverent.

So much so, that I almost felt myself stifling a laugh at times.

There are many psychologically complex reasons why we find things funny. One of the many reasons we laugh at things is out of discomfort, or incredible surprise, and laughing becomes almost a way of relieving it and escaping the discomfort. Whatever the reason is, throughout specific parts of Eugenides' narrative, I felt very dark, abysmal undertones lurking somewhere deep in my perception of the novel.

I think one reason is how ridiculously pitiful Cecilia's death is. First of all, the death itself is very jarring because it's completely and utterly unexpected. Part of Eugenides' genius is that he literally tells us that (all of?) the girls are going to commit suicide, and yet he still manages to shock us with the event.

And then, after the family has gone through so much pain and suffering over the death itself, there happens to be a multiple week long strike going on at the cemeteries that makes it impossible for Cecilia to be buried, and all of the places that are considered for Cecilia's internment are absolutely awful in their own way (or, at least, Mr. Lisbon perceives them in that way).

And there is a hyperbolic amount of irreverence shown toward her death and the act of her suicide, such as a boy being tempted to "cop a feel" during her open casket and all the neighborhood boys passing around her diary and analyzing it as if they were taken straight out of The Sandlot. A lot of the people in the story are also just ridiculously terrible, such as Mrs. Buell, who suggests that Cecilia tried to kill herself the first time to get "out of that decorating scheme" (15). Also, Chapter 2 ends with Mr. Buell barely missing witnessing her suicide because his wife was sick and he turned away at just the right moment. This is a trope used in both comedy and tragedy, and this duality contributes to the very unsettling tone of The Virgin Suicides. Everything in it could be taken at face value as very very tragic and depressing, or as absurdly comic in somewhat of a sickening way.

This is why I feel differently than a lot of others about the novel. I hardly feel as if it's "romanticizing" suicide. If anything, Cecilia's suicide is framed as being morbidly pathetic. I read the grace in which she is described as being ironic, rather than as portraying her in a beautiful way. I choose to believe that the sickening feeling left in your stomach is one that was very purposefully generated by the author.

Also, at the end of the day, not all storytelling is a medium for social work. The bottom line is that this novel is a story about suicide. There are certainly people who have romantic views of suicide, particularly many of the suicidal, and this is a truth about life that ought not to be ignored. And an author is not necessarily condoning the beliefs that are suggested by his subject matter or writing style. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.