Virgin Suicides

Each year suicide is becoming more common in the United States among adolescents, according to the Suicide and Mental Health Association International. The main reason why adolescents commit suicide is because they are depressed. In the article “Nightmare in the Mirror” by Scott Long, he explains that adolescence has changed throughout the years. An assertion he makes is that teens have “Angst and bouts of suicidal despair distinguish this gloomy figure…” (Long 156). Long explains that throughout the years, adolescents have become sadder and depressed. Adolescents, who suffer from depression and are suicidal, don’t usually inform others. Those adolescents fall into the third quadrant of the Johari Window.

The Johari Window is a useful model that shows the process of human interaction. The third quadrant is known as the “faзade”. In the “faзade”, it provides information that is known to you, but that is not known to others. For example, in the “faзade” can be secrets about yourself that you want no one else to know about. All of this information relates to the film The Virgin Suicides. The film The Virgin Suicides is about the Lisbon family and their five teenage daughters. After the youngest daughter commits suicide, the parents of the girls become very strict and eventually take them out of high school. The girls remain imprisoned in their own home, with hardly any contact from the outside world. The overprotection of the Lisbon girl’s parents caused them all to be depressed which eventually led to their suicide.

The Lisbon girls killed themselves because their parents were overprotective which caused them to be depressed and eventually caused them all to commit suicide. You can tell from watching the film that the parents of the Lisbon girls were overprotective. For example, taking the girls out of high school and imprisoning them in their own home. It all started after the youngest daughter Cecilia suddenly committed suicide. The remaining girls descended into a deep melancholy. All of the girls became isolated both socially and physically by their parents after Lux, the second youngest daughter, stayed out all night with a boy.

As a result of being isolated from others, the girls become depressed. Lux makes the statement “I can’t breathe in here” (The Virgin Suicides). The girls become extremely lonely. Even before Cecilia, the youngest daughter, committed suicide the girls were still sheltered. Cecilia’s psychiatrist told the parents that the girls needed another social outlet besides school. This proves that it is not healthy for adolescents to not be social. With the girls now without the social outlet of school, the girls became lonely and depressed. According to neuropsychiatrist, Rajesh Parikh, “Alcoholism and suicide become a handmaiden due to loneliness and depression”. In other words, people who are lonely and depressed have a higher risk of committing suicide. Since the girls were lonely and depressed, they were at a higher risk of committing suicide.

Since the girls were depressed, this later resulted in their suicide. “Suicide attempts are usually made when a person is seriously depressed and feels that there is no way out of their problems” according to D’Arcy Lyness, PhD. Adolescents commit suicide because they feel as if they can not escape emotional pain. The Lisbon girls were simply depressed. The majority of adolescents who commit suicide suffer from depression. From the film The Virgin Suicides, it is obvious that the Lisbon girls are depressed. The Lisbon girl’s depression was the cause of their suicide. The girls could simply not live the way that they were any longer. How could anyone live that way imprisoned in their own home by their parents? The Lisbon sisters all made a pact to commit suicide together.

An argument that can be made is that the Lisbon girls did not commit suicide because they were depressed,