Mental Illness In The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides’ childhood greatly influenced his perspective of the urban decay created by the failure of the automotive industry in Detroit. His contemporary novel, The Marriage Plot, mirrors the unprecedented, rapid transition from prosperity to failure. Nevertheless, he presents his childhood in a positive manner due to his positive temperament, but this only causes him to further question the role of destructive upbringings, as seen in his novel, The Virgin Suicides. By exploring the struggles of young adults, Eugenides reveals the overwhelming, yet often ignored, impact of mental illness, which employs the idea that the negative stigma deters from any useful support. As he grew older, Eugenides attended Brown University, where he took …show more content…
He employs these views in The Marriage Plot, where he depicts the altered life of a young adult, Leonard, after being diagnosed with manic depression. Leonard’s manic depression greatly influences his life due to “the problem of responsibility [being] qualified by mental illness,” which suggests that the realm of responsibilities of mentally ill individuals are greatly shifted due to their varying mental capabilities (Toibin). Nevertheless, Eugenides employs the idea that such mentally ill individuals are expected to continue in their lives, ignoring any significant changes. Leonard rekindles his relationship with his previous girlfriend, Madeline, and even decides to continue his career by traveling to the Pilgrim Lake Laboratory, focusing mainly on his experiments while ignoring internal chemical imbalances. He is expected to mask his illness in order to maintain a balanced life due to society’s beliefs surrounding the productivity of those affected by mental illness. Eugenides debunks the practicality of society’s expectations by showing Leonard’s failure. Madeline’s family visits the couple’s household and quickly discovers Leonard’s medication. This completely changes their view on Leonard’s ability to successfully provide for …show more content…
Society’s negative stigma motivates “individuals to fear, reject, avoid, and discriminate against people” who they believe derive from any of society’s commonalities (Parcesepe and Leopoldo). In The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon sisters are rejected from their community after their youngest sister, Cecilia, committed suicide, which ultimately caused them to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead of allocating for them, the community “subverts any psychoanalytic and clinical” support for the adolescent girls, leading to the further development of their mental instabilities (Vanyova). Eugenides shows the complete lack of the community’s empathy towards the girls’ struggles through the questioning of a clinical doctor, “‘What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets,”’and this shows the association between suffering and adulthood (The Virgin Suicides). This leads to any adolescent problems being undermined due to their belief in the lack of severity compared to the hardships of adulthood, which causes the community to completely ignore the mental instabilities of the Lisbon