The Dying Who Refuse to Bury the Dead: The Virgin Suicides, the Limits of Consciousness, Death and Decay Hannah Kindler 11th Grade

We can’t know how another person feels. Perhaps, in an age of “empathy workshops,” this is a disappointment, but on a deeper level of human behavior it is probably both simultaneously a relief and a tragedy. "Thank heavens," some may say, "that we do not have a responsibility to the true experiences of others, that we do not have to be bothered, that it isn’t our problem." These limits of consciousness are an essential and seemingly untalked about component of the human experience that lead to all kinds of frustration and malcontent. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides explores this unfortunate longing and the idea of “limits of consciousness” is a cornerstone of meaning in the novel.The Virgin Suicides is about five sisters who all eventually kill themselves. Except it isn’t. If that were true, the plot of the book would not be revealed in the first sentence (or the title). The story does recount the deaths of the Lisbon sisters, but these girls are not the main characters and the story is not theirs. Death is prominent in the story, but the girls’ deaths are not what is being lamented. The death of a community, the death of a city, the death of a dream, and the death of a country loom over the pages of this book, making...