The Virgin Suicides: A Literary Analysis

In ancient societies rituals played a key role in the structure of the community. Because lifespans were much shorter, boys needed to come of age quicker in order to replenish the supply of adults to lead the group. Today, many rituals for coming of age are based off our ancestors, however, they have lost their importance and become an empty process. Modern writers, like T.S. Eliot, Jeffery Eugenides, and William Maxwell, now talk of how this loss of ritual and thus the loss of a spiritual and physical connection to a higher power is leading to the decay of civilization and a rocky path to adulthood
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Two writers in the late 19th century and early 20th century who discussed rituals were Frazer and Weston. Frazer’s The Golden Bough talked …show more content…
This novel builds off of the idea of the Harvest Ritual, which in today’s society has become Homecoming. Lux and Trip were chosen as the king and queen of Homecoming in the novel, however, instead of consummating their relationship with a combination of the spiritual and the physical in order to have the land be reborn, their relationship is purely physical. Furthermore, immediately after they were crowned, Lux states that “it has stopped raining” therefore the land is not getting fertilized and there will be no new growth. Therefore, because nothing comes from their relationship as king and queen, the ritual of Homecoming or the Harvest Ritual has become empty. Also, Dominic Palazzo’s suicide attempt in the beginning of the book made the act of suicide an empty ritual. He jumped off the roof in an emotional outburst because he loved a girl and she was moving away. However, he survived, obviously because he did not jump from a high enough distance, and as the ritual was not completed it was an empty ritual. Eugenides heavily connects to Eliot's The Waste Land. In the Virgin Suicides the elm trees are dying, fish flies have infested the land, and an asphyxiation party is held at the end because the air has become toxic. Overall, the land is in decay as in Eliot’s poem. Furthermore, the character of Mrs. Karafilis is the same as Eliot’s Tiresias who foretold of the …show more content…
The Virgin Suicides focuses more on the decay of the land as portrayed in Eliot’s poem. The Folded Leaf explores a specific idea found in Frazer’s book. However, they are similar in that the decay and loss of ritual play an important part in stunting the growth of the main characters. It can be argued that no one in The Virgin Sucides actually comes of age. The boys are left with an arrested development after the girls’ suicides and the girls rob themselves of their development into adulthood and the decay of the land/civilization and the emptiness of rituals contribute to this turn of events. Therefore, just as Maxwell’s main characters struggle from lost rituals, Eugenides do as