a. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides both examine the relationship between victims and the world surrounding them; while Plath creates an individual, inspired by herself, who fights against the world, Eugenides, affected by his youth in a violent city, writes about a suburban society, instrumental in oppressing the Lisbon girls. While both protagonists fight against their worlds with their painful pollution and challenges to male superiority, they struggle to find a niche in their environment because of forces acting against them: unattainable ambition, low self-esteem, sexism, and the plague of perfectionism in white suburbia. Both feel an undeniable emotional emptiness, allowing the violent world to expose the female protagonists to the addictive “small, deep thrill” of suicide: raising the question if the characters will overcome past identities of scholars and sisters, or dwell in their “senseless pattern of ecstasy and madness” (Plath 148, Eugenides 181). The relationship of the world with the Lisbon Girls and Esther exposes the
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Esther and the Lisbon Girls allow their identities to rest within other people; they lose their scholarship and their sisterhood, leaving them vulnerable to their worlds tearing up their self worth.
The world of a woman is a world completely inexperienced by half of the population; Esther and the Lisbon daughters experience female suffering from obsession with purity and struggle with inferiority.
Both resting in the prison of suburban America, this world inflicts the hollowness of the upper class upon Esther and the Lisbons.
In a last effort of exposure to their worlds, Mary Lisbon and Esther do not have their original identities and are faced, for the first time in their life, with developing a sense of
Esther and the Lisbon Girls allow their identities to rest within other people; they lose their scholarship and their sisterhood, leaving them vulnerable to their worlds tearing up their self worth.
The world of a woman is a world completely inexperienced by half of the population; Esther and the Lisbon daughters experience female suffering from obsession with purity and struggle with inferiority.
Both resting in the prison of suburban America, this world inflicts the hollowness of the upper class upon Esther and the Lisbons.
In a last effort of exposure to their worlds, Mary Lisbon and Esther do not have their original identities and are faced, for the first time in their life, with developing a sense of