The Virgin Suicides Lesson Plan- Worksheet 1

Journal Article Assignment

In The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides does not allow us to get in depth into the mind of his characters. He wants them to remain mysterious and dream like. Yet, he explores them enough that we as the readers can get a sense of who they are as a people. This assignment will force you to figure out who these characters are on a more personal level.

First, you will need to choose a character to get into the mind of. Your choices are either one of the five Lisbon sisters (Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, Cecilia) or to make a more specific character out of the unnamed narrator. Do not just pick the one you think will be easy. Find one that you feel you can best embody. In order for you to get into their mindset, you will have to fill out the other worksheet, the background sheet. Answer all of these questions before starting your journal. Some of these questions you will be able to answer easily, some will require inference, and others will require creativity.

Once you have this finished, you will start on writing two journal articles for them. These articles will describe two key scenes in the text. I provided you some possible scenes below, but feel free to pick another. If you are interested in doing a scene not portrayed in the novel, ask me for permission, just so I know and I feel it makes sense for your character. This will not just be you describing what the text says, it will require you to describe why that scene is important to the character. Explore how your relationship changed with other key characters. What was your emotional well being in this scene? What parts of this scene impacted you the most? How do you change because of this scene? This will require a strong knowledge of the character and the text. Use your creative writing skills to not only describe the scene from a specific point of view, but to explore aspects of the novel in closer detail. Some possible scenes that might prove helpful in this assignment include:

• The party scene right before Cecilia’s suicide
• The Homecoming Dance
• The destruction of the tree
• Trip’s pursuit of Lux
• Mrs. Lisbon’s crackdown of the rules
• The group suicide