Virgin Suicides 4

Passage:



"Lux's brief unions were clandestine. They sprouted in the dead time of study halls, bloomed on the way to the drinking fountain, and were consumated in the hot box above the auditorium, amid uncomfortable theatrical lights and cables...That Lux consented to meet them in the dells and thickets of our school grounds only showed too well her disequilibrium."



- This passage is important to the work as a whole because it shows how the sisters react to the death of Cecilia. This passage, and the ones surrounding it, show Lux making decisions without thinking about their emotional or physical consequences. This allows the readers to infer that Lux, too, sees no value in life. We already know that she is going to die, and in this passage, we see the beginning of the end of her life.

- The author uses nature imagery to depict the stages of Lux's relationships and her life. The juxtaposition of "sprouted" and "dead time" help to create the idea that Lux's life is beginning to wither away - right when she is at the height of her youth. Also, by placing the scenes in the auditorium ( with its lights, cables, and man-made technology) next to the lines described through nature, Eugenides shows how unnatural Lux's behavior is, and how destructive it is to her life. This idea is then restated in the last sentence with the use of "disequilibrium".