Our world exists for a lot of years, but still, the problems of misunderstanding exist. Some people still say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus that is why they cannot find a common language for both of them. But in course of time, some people begin to understand, that they were born in the wrong human cover. Men feel like women and on the wrong side out. These people have the gift to understand not only themselves but also the opposite gender. They help disclose the nature, secrets, and mysteries of another gender. Jeffrey Eugenides in his well-known book “The Virgin Suicides” tried to show all the difficulties of the existence of the two genders in our cruel world through the eyes of a real hermaphrodite. Let us take a close look at this sparkling work of literature.
The writer Jeffrey Eugenides did not think that his literary work would become so famous. He writes about adolescent sisters who cannot find their places in this cruel world, who are very tired to struggle with different problems of their everyday life, who cannot display a keen interest in something, who cannot find any support and understanding from the side of the adults, who live their own lives, even though they live in society and who commit suicide one by one. It is very hard to read this work as these girls are at the very beginning of their lives, they will have a nice future, they can choose their own destinies for themselves, but all these thoughts remain just dreams. The sisters tackle different problems. Unfortunately, they are too young and not enough wise to struggle against them. They do not have enough strength to accept the challenge of Destiny. Being a little bit older, I consider, they could resist their confusions and problems. This story shocks the neighbors, especially those boys who know these girls, who spend a lot of their spare time beside them, who know various secrets about these the Lisbon sisters, who take care cautiously about memoirs concerning them, as boys never say in loud about their feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, and desires. Boys keep them deep in their hearts and think that it is a disgrace to be attentive, loving, kind, sympathetic, tender, and caring. Somewhere deep in their hearts there remain the images of elusive creatures. This story is retold by everyone adding it with new bright and sparkling facts, describing in all tones, colors, and paints. These boys admire the Lisbon sisters, as they regarded these girls as heroes who can rise above the prosaic everyday life, forget about urgent obstacles and be free of responsibilities of any kind. Boys make the lives of the Lisbon sisters of the small pieces of their recollections. The whole puzzle becomes a bright spot for their youth. But unlike these memoirs, in fact, the life of the Lisbon sisters is just the opposite one. They are in the incarceration of their own grey, horrible and horrific house. They are real prisoners of it. The sisters try to find various methods to give evidence of them. And when the author describes the ball the reader’s heart is wrung with pain, fear, and disappointment. The ball becomes for them a forbidden gift, the play with which can be looked upon as a last straw of the drowning man. All this literary work is full of grey, sad, bitter, and painful colors. But the author dilutes them with sunny and humorous faint notes of the lives of young people. It is an open secret that every person at the beginning of his or her life begins to tackle different problems, but it is very often the case that he/she just hides from them due to the smile and positive mood. So author also describes funny moments in the lives of these sisters and talks about embarrassing positions and ways out of them. The reader can perceive this book as a real guide in the life of youth. The author reproduces the everyday life of these teenagers through the eyes of a person who can play in both teams – boys and girls. He is a strong, brave, clever, and courageous boy with tender, soft, kind, responsive, obliging, and loving traits of character. He is not “strange” for boys and girls at the same time. Only he can understand the essence of them taken together and each taken separately.
Our life is an amazing thing. At the beginning of it, everything is so difficult, incomprehensible. Young people try to find a way out, they suffer a lot, but in a near future, they understand that all those problems from their past were so scanty in comparison with their current problems. They begin to realize that all their feelings and emotional experience were in vain. And just in that very moment, they feel themselves crushed but not defeated. From nowhere they get the second breath and soon are ready to struggle with the injustice of everyday life. It is very important for every person in this world to keep hope and faith in himself or herself, in his/her forces. Only positive feelings in hearts and minds, only faith for the better future, only love for himself or herself and surrounding people can help reach all the goals in life and receive the maximum pleasure from it.
Works Cited
- Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. Ld Books Inc, 2005.
- Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 8th ed. New York: BEDFORD ST MARTINS, 2007.