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"All that we see or seem I Is but
a dream within a dream" : Freud's
The Uncanny and the Destruction
of the Suburban Ideal in Jeffrey
Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides
Michael Madsen
Aarhus U ni versity
Abstract: This essay discusses Jeffrey Eugenides's novel The Virgin Su icides ( 1993) in relation to Freud'.~ theories of The Uncanny. The Uncanny arises in th e sphere of the familiar and the unfamiliar. In the novel, th ere is something oddly familiar about the setting and the characters, but an unknown and unfamiliar element threatens the safe haven that is suburbia. The Lisbon girls are presented as symbols of the Ameri- can Dream of a Promised Land, but end up representing an American Nightmare. Imprisoned and siiffocated by their ever-decaying home, it becomes obvious that th e only release in suburban life is death. Fo r the boys narrating th e novel, the Lisbon girls become an obsession. They become part of a collective dream of happiness, cleanness, and pe1fection. With dark humor Eugenides strips the glossy veneer of Am erican suburbia, exposing a world of sickness and unhappiness.
Keywords: Sigmund Freud- suburbia- Jeffrey Eugenides- The Virgin Suici des-the uncanny-post-World War II America
H earing the word "s uburbia" immediately brings forth images in your mind: A car coming down a street " boasting of houses that provide comfo rt and pdvacy ... "w ith children playing on the sidewalk (M iller 1995, 403). The sun embracing a white picket fence as a dog barks in the distance. These images have be co me prevale nt in the widely popul ar TV-se1ies "D esperate Housewives" and movies such as American Beauty (1999) and Blue Vel - vet (1986). " Desperate Housewives" begins with the suicide of a suburban
ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM 15
housewife, and the remainder of the first season focuses on the reasons for her untimely death. In the proces s, the skeletons come bursting out of the close t. The true lives of the other housewives portrayed in the show also prove that the image of perfect living they cling on to is anything but realis- tic. The same set-up is seen in American Beauty, also with death and trage- dy as the result. Blue Velvet goes even deeper and shows a dark, sinister, and perverted world which shocks protagonist, Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan). The similarity between American Beauty, Blue Ve lv et, and "Desperate House- wives" is their portrayal of a world beyond the shiny veneer of "the burb s. " Here one can experience the sickness that challenges the perfect image of carefree suburbia. This is also the reality of American suburbia in Jeffrey Eugenides 's novel The Virgin Suicides (1993). The post-World War II years in America saw the rise of suburbia and what would eventually lead to the ideal way of living in the States. While the origins of modern suburbia can be traced all the way back to late eigh- te enth-century London, it has become something that is defined as genu- inely American (Fishman 4-5). Back at that time, living in the su bu rbs was about "[the] search for the perfect maniage of nature and culture ... desire to create a balanced life, the best of all worlds ... ," and it became "a set of values and a way oflife" (Silverstone 5, 3). Away from the noise, pollution, and crime of the big city, suburbia, on the surface, was a safe haven for families. The quest to separate the sphere of work with that of home could be achieved here. Also, "after two decades of depression and war, America was looking f orwa rd-to a fresh and prosperous future" (Martinson 58). lt was time once again to rediscover and redefine the American Dream. Tom Martinson quotes Scott Russell Sanders saying that the American Dream is "t he dream of settling down , in peace and freedom and coop- eration, in the promised land" (Martinson 23). Since suburbia offered such features it became just that: The Promised Land. Furthermore, the choice to move to the suburbs, according to Martinson, was "primarily about gain- ing personal space" (Martinson 54). Essentially, the intention behind it was similar to that of the settlement on the Frontier. Americans went out looking for personal space and freedom; the Frontier was discovered and eventually settled. Hi storian Frederick Jackson Turner announced in his thesis "The Significance of the Frontier in American Hi story" ( 18 93) that the Fron- tier was closed. He highlighted that "the experiences of isolation and the availability of free land had shaped American democracy and institutions" (Duncan 19). In the final pages of his book, Martinson concludes: "The
ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM 17
what fails. The be st way to define it is by looking at it s meaning in German: Unbeimlich. This word is "obviously the opposite of ' heimlich' [' homely 'J, 'heimisch' ['native' ]-the opposite of what is familiar ... " (Freud 220). About the uncanny, Helene Cixous states that it can be "a unit in the ' fam- ily' ... [that] is not really a member of the family" (Cixous 528). Laura J. Miller's essay "Family Togetherness and the Suburban Ideal" addresses this as she writes: " The suburban ideal was always and explicitly about guard- ing against the encroachment of nonfamily members" (Miller 398). As we will see, the sense that something "heimlich" has become "unheimlich" is very important when it comes to the destruction of the ideal in The Virgin Suicides. In her discussion of the uncanny and the familiar versus the unfa- miliar, Helene Cixous notes: "It is the between that is tainted with strange- ness" (Cixous 543). On the same subject, Maria M. Tatar writes : "Uncanny events have the power to evoke a sense of dread precisely because they are at once strange and familiar" (Tatar 169). Freud also alludes to something interesting when dealing with the word "Heimlich," seeing that it can also mean something secret or something kept from sight and concealed. By adding the prefix "un-," the definition changes and everything "that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light" is unheimHch (Freud 225). According to Tatar: "t he pre- fix un- does not, as is usually the case, negate the meaning of the adjective, but functions rather as a 'token of repression'" (Tatar 169). Throughout the essay I will return to Freud and the uncanny. Freud brings forth the idea of "heimlich" being something "homelike" and "' belonging to the house' ... " (Freud 225). Furthermore, one defini- tion of the word "heimlich" in Freud's essay is: "Intimate, friendlily com- fortable; the enjoyment of quiet content. .. arousing a sense of agreeable restfulness and security as in one within four walls of his hou se" (Freud 222). In her discu ss ion of the uncanny, Tatar writes: "A house contains the familiar and congenial, but at the same time it screens what is familiar and congenial from view, making a mystery out of it ... What takes place within the four walls of a house remains a mystery to those shut from it" (Tatar 169). In The Virgin Suicides the boys who function as the narra- tive voice are observing the Lisbon house along with the reader, wondering what exactly goes on in there. Even later when the boys enter the house, the my stery within it remains. The Lisbon girls are inside the house fading away, and, meanwhile, the house itself fades away and dies with the girls. The house becomes "one big
18 American Studies in Scandinavia, 40:1-2,^2008
coffin" (Eugenides 163). It is even the "growing shabbiness of the house" that attracts the reporters wanting to find out, like all of us, why Cecilia and the rest of the girls killed themselves (93). In Sofia Coppola's 1999 movie based on the novel, she fails to fully capitalize on the notion that the house is decaying. Aside from a number over the front door hanging upside-down, there is virtually nothing that can be considered as a real sign of decay or death. This is a very important aspect of the novel and furthers the se nsation of death and decay connected to the girls and the family. When the girls are locked up inside the house after the prom, and Mr. Lis- bon is fired, "the house truly died. For as long as Mr. Lisbon had gone back and forth to school, he circulated a thin current of life through the house, bringing the girls treats ... When Mr. Lisbon stopped going out, however, he stopped bringing home sweets" (162-163). With the firing of Mr. Lisbon, the last contact with the outside world dies. Essentially, no more sweetne ss or happiness enters the house: "[Mr. Lisbon] looked at the Good Humor truck passing by, the jingle of the bell seemed to trigger a memory, he smiled, or winced - we couldn't tell which - and returned inside" (59). In the end, the house comes to symbolize the decay of the Lisbon girls and the rot of subur- bia. The idea that something is being hidden in the house is clear in the novel and the movie. Earlier on, " the front door was always left open, because one of the girls was always running in or out" (22). After the prom, Mrs. Lisbon chooses to isolate the girls, and "a cloud always seemed to hover over the Li sbon's roof. There was no explanation, except the psychic one that the house became obscured, because Mrs. Lisbon willed it to be" (141). Evidently, the girls e nd up as prisoners in their own home. Martinson argues that the choice to move to the suburbs was "primarily about gaining personal space" (Martinson 54). In the vision of suburbia presented to us in The Virgin Suicides, the personal space has turned into a prison slowly killing the people in it. About the girls in The Virgin Suicides, the boys say: "Inside their house they were prisoners; outside, lepers. And so they hid from the world, waiting for someone-for us-to save them" (199). "Des- perate Housewives" and American Beauty pre se nt a similar situation. The big suburban house imprisons these people who have been led to believe that everything is possible and wonderful in suburbia. Their imprisonment threatens to suffocate them and the release is adultery or suicide. In " De s- perate Housewives," the suburban road, Wisteria Lane, which sounds like something almost magical out of The Wi zard of Oz, becomes the road to imprisonment, unhappiness, and, finally, d eath.
20 American^ Studies^ in Scandinavia,^ 40:^1 -2,^2008
The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides uses repetition as a way to create comedic moment s. As autopsies are being performed on the girls, an "assembly-line approach" is be ing used. Eugenide s's depic ti on of the mass burial of the girls is a great example of grotesque humor: "Because of limited avai lable space, the girls ' graves did not lie side by side but widely separated , so that the funeral party had to make the rounds, going from grave to grave at the excruciatingly slow speed of cemetery traffic" (239). Th e situation is made even more ridiculous with the information that a cemetery workers' strike ends on the day of Mary 's suicide: "The stril<e's length has caused mortuar- ies to fill up months ago, and the many bodies awaiting burial now ca me back from out of state, in refrigerated trucks, or by airplane, depending on the wealth of the deceased. On the Chrysl er Freeway one t ru ck got into an accident, flipping over, and the front page of the newspaper ran a photo showing metal caskets spilling from the truck like ingots" (238-39). However, Eugenides reminds us of the horrific events that th ese parents have bee n through by stating: "tragedy had beaten them into mindless sub- mission" (239). It is, of course, a horrible situation to imagine: Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon having to bury all of their children on the same da y. But the humor of the entire situation as described by Eugen id es definitely sugarcoats the image and the story overall. Even if it is a story of taboos such as suicides, (mass) burials, and, not to forget, general distress and the decay of suburbia, it makes you laugh and feel comfortable. This is of course the intention, be- ca use you can be ca ught in this prosaic state with your guards down and the feeling of comfort can quickly be turned into something uncomfortable. Eugenides says that he te nd s "to make bi zarre things normal" and es- pecially in the case of the funerals, it does seem like a normal everyday event (Miller 2002). The normality in The Virgin Suicides and the ca lm , unimpressed tone of the n ana ti on help make the novel even more uncanny. S ui cide, all of a sudden, becomes the most normal thing on the plan et and something you can actua ll y write about in a humorous way. The humor hides the ugliness of what is going on; essentially the truth. This goes back to the idea of the suburbs as a place where the ugliness of th e world is hid- den away. Furthermore, you are once again in thi s space between familiar a nd unfamiliar only with the addition of funny versus scary. This covering up of the harsh realities is exactly what Eugenides is trying to destroy. The Virgin Suicides is more than anything "a novel of shared experi- ence" (Complete Review). Not only is it the shared experien ce of the boys, but also the shared experience of many Americans from the 1950s and up
ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM 21
until the present day. Eugenides feels that "the main purpose of literature, as it always has been, is to map human consciousness at a certain time, remembering your thoughts ... That is what novels are: a mental picture of a certain era" (Moorhem). In the case of The Virgin Suicides it is partly a mental picture of an era that has disappeared, but nevertheless an era that people desperately cling on to. The years following World War II were in- strumental in shaping the America and the American way of life known to virtually everyone today. The suburban sprawl and the idea of owning your own house outside of the city appealed to the masses then and now. The novel is thus a series of snapshots of a society-romanticized as it may be-known to most Americans. The narrative voice in The Virgil} Suicides is especially interesting since Eugenides uses a collective "we" narrator and suggests a collective "w e" memory of the period. About the idea of "impos si ble narrative voices," Eugenides says:
I seem drawn to impossible nan-alive voices for some reason. I think it's related to reli- gious literature in a way. I think with the Bible and certain religious texts, this voice sort of speaks to you. You don't know where it' s coming from and yet it's mesmerizing and is full of (supposed) wisdom and you have to listen to it. I like books where the narrative voice is in some way originless and you don't know exactly where it's coming from. That seems to me something that books can do that nothing else can do. And that is in a way the condition of literature as opposed to journalism, that kind of voice issuing from mystery. (M iller 2002)
The "we" narrator adds a distinct quality particularly because, since we know the voice comes from the boys, it is more or less society comment- ing on itself. The boys represent this collective memory of the period and suburbia. Some of the boys see Lux as a force of nature (Eugenides 150). Indeed, it is very fitting that Lux is Latin for "light." The boys see the girls as the sun of their existence-their lives revolve around them. It shines so brightly that they cannot see the girls' flaws or differences. They fall in love with the ideal of the girls - or girl as the boys cannot tell the sisters apart. About Sofia Coppola 's movie adaptation, Stephanie Zacharek states: "' The Virgin Suicides' isn ' t simply about the way men can fall hopelessly in love with ideals; it's about how they can be ultimately undone by them ... [Coppola] re-creates their vision for us in all its beauty, but she also suggest the holes in it-the dark spots that dance in front of you when you've been stupid enough to state directly at the sun" (Zacharek). In the novel and the movie,
ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM 23
dream a nd memory of the girls which makes them "happi er with dreams than wive s" thus trying to live forever (Eugenides 169). The conclusion the boys come to is that "so mething sick in the heart of the country had infected the girls," and that Cecilia's fir st attempt at suicide had spread the poison in the air (231 , 234). Poison a nd sickness are impor- tant elements in The Virgin Suicides. Th e e lm tree in front of the Lisbon house is sick, and, seemingly, the entire street or neighbor hood is infected. The sic kn ess and the disease can very well be something repressed by all the characters and perhaps by the entire country. Freud states that repression is very important in connection with the uncanny: "this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien , but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind which has beco me alienated from it only through the process' of repression" (Freud 241). This goes back to the idea of th e uncanny being something that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light. Moreover, Tatar notes that in th e case of th e un cann y, we are dealing with so mething that " ... possesses a secret once familiar but ma de alien by th e process of forgetting" (Tatar 176 ). Tatar claims: "Once the token of repression is li fted from an uncanny event, what was formerly unheimlich becomes heimlic h: the once hostile world becomes habitable again" (182). Yet, in the world of The Virgin Suicides the feeling of something "unheim- lich" remains with the audience. To the re ader this confrontation with the world of surfaces creates a feel - ing that can be defined as uncanny. After all, we seem to know this world presented to us, yet there is something going on that we cannot understand or perhaps even point out. Along with the characters, we are placed in a space between the familiar and unfamiliar, a space tainted with strangeness. As we look at this world it becomes obvious that it has a double effect and functions both as a window and as a mirror: a window into another world, but at the same time, a world mirroring the one from which we observe. It becomes a mental picture of an era that is both a romantic memory and something people still stri ve for. Many artists have depicted the horrors and dark underbelly of suburbia both in movies and literature. Jeffrey Eugenides does so by masterfully ju x- taposing humor and horro r, thus creating a novel that can be r ead in relation to Freud's theories of the uncann y. In this uncanny world of surfaces and images, the characters have been blinded into a life of pretending to live the ideal American way. Yet, in the end, all they see and seem is, indeed, just a dream within a dream.
24 Ame^ rican. Studies^ in^ Scandinavia,^ 40:^ 1-2,^2008
Works Cited
Cixous, Helene. "Fiction a nd Its Phantoms: A Reading ?f Freud 's Das Unhe im liche (The
'uncanny')." New Literary Hi story, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Spnng 1976), 525-48. Coppola, Sofia, dir. The Virgin Suicides. Paramount. 199 9. D un can, Russe ll and Joseph Goddard. Contempor w)' America. New Yo r k: Palgrave Mac- millian, 2003. Eugenides, Jeffrey. Th e Virgin Suicides. (1993). Lo ndon: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002. Fishman , Robert. Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suhurhia. New York: Basic Books ln c., 1987. Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freu d, Vol. XV!l. (1955). Translated and edited by James Strach ey. London: The Hogarth Press Ltd., 19 8 1. Lynch, David, dir. Blue Velvet. De Laurenti is Entertainment Group (1986). Martinson, Tom. American Dreamscape: The Pursuit of Happiness in Postwar Suburbia. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc ., 2000. Mendes, Sam, dir. American Beauty. DreamWorks. (1999). Miller, Laura J. "Fa mily Togetherness and the Suburban Idea l. " Sociological Forum, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Sep ., 1995), 393-41 8. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Great Tal es and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1940). New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1941. Silverstone, Roger, ed. Vi sions of Suburbia. London: Routledge, 1997. Tatar, Maria M. "T he Houses of F iction: Toward a Definition of the Uncan ny ." Comparative Literature, Vo l. 33, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), 167-82.
Websites Complete Revi ew. "The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides." http://www.complete-re- view.com/rev iews/popus/eugenj2. htm Miller, Laura. "Sex, Fa te and Zeus and Hera's Ki nkiest Argument." http:// archive. salon. com/books/int/2002/10/08/eugenides/ index.html (Miller) Moorhem, Bram van. "3am Interview. The Novel As a Mental Picture of Its Era." http:// www.3anunagazine.com/litarchives/2003/sep/interview_jeffrey_eugenides. 11Lml (Muur- hem) Zacharek, Stephanie. "The Virgin Suicides." http://dir.salo n. com/ent/movies /review/ 2000/ 04 /21/suicides/index.html (Zacharek)
