Who killed the Lisbon Girls? - Megan Lovell, BHASVIC

Jeffrey Eugenides’ debut ‘The Virgin Suicides’ has been a popular favourite since its initial release in 1993. The film shortly followed in 1999, with actress’ Kirsten Dunst (Lux Lisbon) and Kathleen Turner (Mrs Lisbon) at its heart. The story line follows the mass suicide of the Lisbon girls and the circumstances surrounding their deaths. The main question persists throughout both novel and movie; why did the Lisbon sisters take their lives? Well, as you’ll know if you’ve read the book - or watched the film - we never get the answer to that question. As the novel is written from the perspective of their male classmates, it means we can never really comprehend what was going through the girls’ mind in the build up to their suicide. Therefore, I want to see whether the answer lies within the text, or if like their classmates, we’re never really meant to know what happened.