Life Suxxx

“Obviously doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.” And obviously, neither have I. So I can’t really relate at all. I can’t comment on my experiences as a thirteen-year old girl, and how/if they may be at all similar to Cecilia’s. However, I felt like there was a weirdly erotic tone to the way Cecilia was described.

I found it interesting to think of Cecilia through Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze, and Butler’s concept of performativity. And honestly, in terms of the male gaze, I don’t know how much is actually there, because after all we mostly see her self-mutilating (You can only be so erotic when it comes to suicidal thirteen year olds).  Yet the way we are constantly told about how all the other children were concerned with how the Lisbon sisters viewed them. In fact, it is revealed to us that many of the boys “had fallen in love with [Cecile], but had kept it to [themselves], knowing that she was the weird sister” and that they all looked up her dress when she rode her bike to see her black underwear. So there is some aspect of a male gaze by the other characters. It’s hard for me to imagine much of an erotic reaction from the reader due to the explicit detail we are given at both of Cecile’s suicide attempts.

In terms of performativity, I think the white wedding dress Cecile wears is quite telling. This young girl is already buying into the expectation of marriage. She is performing her role of a woman, and I think her comments to the doctor indicate this as well. He’s never had to perform the role of a girl. And there is a lot of fascination about girls throughout the book. Whether it’s in terms of the menstrual cycle, underwear, breasts the female anatomy is analyzed, and the role of being a woman is analyzed. Maybe Mr. Buell was right… “That girl didn’t want to die. She just wanted out of that house”, she just wanted to get out of her role.

-Ameet