it was weird. the ending wasn't really an answer to any of our questions yet for some reason it felt like closure. it was also really weird to me that they left mary behind. I don't really understand why the author felt Mary played an important role in this last chapter. Obviously a living girl vs. a dead girl is a big deal in the real world, but for some reason in this story's little world, in their small town the people, "spoke of the Lisbon girls in the past tense and if they mentioned Mary at all it was with the veiled wish that she would hurry up and get it over with" (219). She simply played the role for about a month of being the one left behind, which is weird because in comparison to a character like Lux, for most of the story Mary was overlooked. I feel like so many things are still just left without any reasoning or purpose, but with a story like this, maybe thats a good thing.

The Lisbon Girls, as we kind of knew them

So, my favorite part in the reading was the ending and how there is really no clear answer as to why the girls killed themselves.  The boys note that there suicide is: "simple selfishness" (242), yet they are unable to understand why they killed themselves.  The last (and best line, in my opinion) is from the boys, and it says: "we loved  [the Lisbon girls]" and "we will never find the pieces to put them back together" (243).  It seems to me that the entire journey of the boys, including telling the story, leads them back to the painful conclusion that they only know so much.  As badly as they want to, they can't tell the complete, truthful story themselves.  Only the Lisbon girls can, but they've departed.

Significance of the Candles

So I finished the book tonight, but I'll only post about what was in the reading for this weekend.  As Callie or Alayna posted, the boys are so infatuated with the girls because they believe that they could have been the ones to save them.  This post, however, concerns the strange position of the girls while they were living.  Before they died, the girls were stuck in a world where they were half-living and half-dead.  In the house: "The candles were a two-way mirror between worlds: they called Cecilia back, but also called her sisters to join her" (194).  I found this part really interesting.  While there is no clear explanation for the girls' suicides, might it be because of the memory of Cecilia calling them forward?  What do you guys think?  Is there a motive for their suicides, or do they do it from being overprotected by their parents?  There seems like there are a million possibilities, but maybe we will never know because the boys as narrators weren't very reliable.

woah

wow. okay. these 15 pages were a lot but I think that I can kind of make a connection between the fish flies and the death of the girls. On page 203, the narrators describe the fish flies "Inert unless detached, they flapped furiously between our fingers, then flew away to cling again, on anything..." and it could be kind of a stretch but the girls after Cecilia had committed suicide sort of died. Not physically but emotionally a part of the whole family had died and that is represented by them being squashed against the walls. Then they were not all dead though, so desperately they did anything to attempt to reconnect with life, prime examples being Lux's "romances" and weight loss and the girls attending the dance and attempting to convince the boys they just wanted to live. They tried to cling to anything, and soon enough they're parents locked them up unable to cling to anything but their loss of their sister. 

For the first time, the boys actually attempt to help and save these girls. Of course it was too little too late, but i think it's significant that it was this instance where they said "for the first time ever we felt like men". (205)

I really don't know what else to say because it all happened so quickly. They all committed suicide together? Was that the plan? Or did Therese set off Lux and Bonnie who set off Mary? ....Or did Cecilia just set them all off and it really was what was going to happen from the very beginning? 

weird

Okay so I noticed that for the first time, we see that it is not Mr. and Mrs.Lisbon who have all the control, but the city itself running the family as a whole, along with other families in the area. "... it was clear our trees were not ours but the city's, to do with as it wished" (179). This goes along with the fact that their yards and lawns were everything to them yet the city could take it away...Also, the city? who is the city? Like "to do with it as it wished" who is the "it" making these decisions for everyone else?
The word actually is never good with these boys. Particularly in this chapter, I think I hear them attempting to draw conclusions with information that they don't really have and constantly have to go back on themselves and say "well actually" or "the truth is" in that a fair amount of the things we're reading could be completely not true at all and they know it.
One boy refers to the Lisbon girls and says that "They're just memories now" (186). It's SO weird that these boys live across the street from the Lisbon girls, stalk them every single day, think about them every single minute, and can say that while they are still living they are nothing but memories. They also mention that "a year had passed and still we knew nothing" (187). This is interesting because they've narrated a lot of a book so far considering they know nothing... it just makes us as readers question the boys even more and it is very very clear that they are questioning themselves as well... until...
They make a big old assumption and think that because of a late night song swap with the Lisbon girls that they want to run off together and elope after never really speaking before. It also is completely pathetic to me that they're all sitting there around this phone listening desperately to the music these girls are playing and are actually trying to relate it to having real experiences with them like "going to a concert" or being able to hear their heart beat. I don't know this whole scene seems really weird to me.

Trip

After yesterday in class and we talked about lux being the saint of light I went back and re read trip talking about lux and whenever he describes something about her he also was related it to light like the lightning attack in the car or even her emotions and how she looks. If she was always shinning bright, then why would she also be throwing it all away later?

why fire

Once again, we are brought to the idea that fire gets rid of things and leaves everything clean and tidy. First we saw this with the burning of the leaves, Mr.Lisbon attempted to control the leaves as if fire was something controllable. Now, Mrs.Lisbon has a fire going in attempts to control Lux by forcing her to throw her rock records into it. However, it is clear that this isn't just her ideal way of getting rid of them because after it begins to smell, Mrs.Lisbon orders her to stop and throws away the rest of them. What is the significance of the fires?
Lema Crawford highlights the topic of the town being not as much of a luxurious haven as the other folks who live their try to make it seem. "Lovely weather down here. Best thing i ever did was to throw down the old shovel and hoe and get out of that town" (144). This shows that there was a large effort and work with attempting to keep your appearances perfect to be accepted in the town.
Going back to what we talked about in class with the idea of the only thing in life the girls are ever exposed to and able to experience is death, on page 160, the boys talk about how Mr.Lisbon is seeming to now be experiencing that very same feeling. "...his swallow complexion dying in sympathy with them; and his lost look of a man who realized that all this dying was going to be the only life he ever had".

Strangled to Death with Love

Mrs. Lisbon wants the best for her daughters, yet in doing so, she kills them.


Being students at a preparatory school, we've heard a story or two about students who 'cracked' under the pressure. Life is already hard enough, being an A student can only be harder. Much of this pressure is probably self-induced, but one has to look at the roots of those tenancies: the parents. Our tenancies as humans can only derive from two sources...nature or nurture. It's easy to blame the parents....but being a parent is the hardest job out there.....and most aren't qualified for the job.

In the case of the Lisbon girls, the pressure is not to be good students, but to be prim and proper. Mrs. Lisbon wants her daughters to be pure....but in achieving this, she strangles them to death. Of course, no sensible parent would do this purposefully, so she would've had to have done it without intention.

How do you kill 5 teenage girls by accident?

You love them too much. Mrs. Lisbon expresses her love to her daughters by contracting the walls, making it even tighter and 'secure'. For this reason is why she wouldn't accept there to be any lack of love years later: "None of my daughters lacked for any love. We had plenty of love in our house" (84).

Coming home from Homecoming (and having left Lux behind) the girls remark about who's in trouble: "Therese said to her, 'Forget it. We're cooked.' 'Luxie is. Not us.'" (129). They fear their mother's iron fist and that fear has prevented them from living. After one night out, it's apparent that at least Bonnie arrives home a changed person (the interaction between her and Conley's hair that stays "Nearly two decades later" (129)).

And Lux. She may seem like a tramp and a worthless rebel......but every adolescent knows she's a warrior fighting tyranny.

Mrs. Lisbon plays music that sounds like "the music you play when someone dies", drags her daughters to church, has them confirmed, doesn't let them go out, doesn't allow dating/boyfriends, doesn't allow perfume or any sort of individualism (makes the daughters look the same in their dresses for the dance), suppresses adolescence in every form and even breathalyzes her own daughter (and was about to hit her).

Cecilia told the doctor he had no idea what it was like to be a 13 yr old girl. She was feeling immense, uncontrollable changes that everyone around her told her to suppress.....well things can get explosive when suppressed...and thus she 'hurled' herself out of the world.

Therese says "We just want to live. If anyone would let us" (128). I feel like this is the most important line of the novel because it expresses every frustration and miscommunication between the Lisbon girls and the outside world, all while hinting at the friction in the interactions between the Lisbon girls and those that prevent them from living.

"Parkie Denton tooted his horn, a short hopeful blast, but just as the girl put her palm to the glass, the light went out" (135). Put out by Mrs. Lisbon in an attempt to protect her daughters from the harsh outside world. In doing so, she suffocates them from lack of light/oxygen/freedom.

Area of Interest

My area of interest for this novel is based off of "offering." I first got this idea when we looked at the meaning of a votive candle. The girls have never offered themselves to anyone, to anything, in any way. I think that death is the only thing that they know how to offer themselves to and that is exactly what they do. They feel like on Earth they have nothing to offer themselves to or are not aloud to offer themselves or maybe don't even know what they have to offer....therefore they turn to death.

I don't actually know how to summarize this

okay so I noticed a lot of things in this reading so i'm gonna go for it.

SO:

First off, when they mention on page 117 the difficulties of having a parent on faculty at your school, I can kinda relate obviously, but they talk about how it makes them feel like a "charity case" and that's interesting because i've actually never thought about it like that at all, so that kind of just shows the way the girls see things a little bit. Next, pretty typical how Mrs.Lisbon randomly returns from the depths of their home when it comes to having control over them again... All she needed to bring her out was to be able to make her daughters look just the way she wanted them to once again. However, the girls were really happy through this whole dance experience nonetheless. Except I also notice that the story gets constantly broken up by the reminders of Cecilia's death that come out of nowhere. It's almost like in the narration of this whole story, the boys were trying to convey that the girls could never be happy. Which also connects with on page 132 Therese saying, "Cecilia was weird, but we're not. We just want to live. If anyone would let us." Everyone always brings them down and it's interesting because it makes me wonder what happens within the next part of the book that their want to live disappears. I have a feeling that Lux's suicide will have something to do with the way Trip and her ended up, with him not caring how she got home and then being sick of her...like where did that even come from.

Um okay on another note, is the fact that "It was the kinda of music they play when you die" (135) a sign about Lux? Why did Cecilia get the flag at half mast while Laura White has a statue? I'm assuming it wasn't just a coincidence that this idea of girl's committing suicide came up as they were looking for their sister who would soon get in trouble. 

"Don't let it die a virgin" in reference to the smoke ring seemed significant to me for reasons i cannot explain so i don't really know about that one

 

Mom, you're crazy

I mostly noticed this:

* Mrs Lisbon is someone I can't understand at all. The book mentions the type of music that she was listening in the house and is described as "what you listen when someone dies". During homecoming, Therese talks about Cecilia for a moment. She claims the rest of the sisters are not like her, they only want to live if anyone would let them. All these references about life and death make me think that the Lisbon family is far from getting over what happened to Cecilia.

* Why did everyone think it was so obvious that Trip and Lux were going to be King and Queen of Homecoming? Specially when people thought they were crazy, as Therese mentions at some point.

Privacy

What I realized at the end of the last class about privacy is that after Cecilia's first suicide attempt, even though privacy is supposed to be very important (page 42) she has even less of it. Her very first moment of privacy since the incident was during the party when she was allowed to leave the basement and walk upstairs by herself. It may be normal for all of us to be able to walk up stairs in our own home alone, with no supervision, but it's not normal in this household. What I find interesting is that the first time she has privacy (maybe she can't stand it?) she kills herself....

No Truth/ Lux is Next/ 13?

It's frustrating to me that still now that we are past page 100, we still have no more solid information than we did on page 1. I feel like there are two sides to every story, one from one unreliable source and one from another unreliable source. It seems like the girls are very up and down in how they are feeling about Cecilia. However the boys are particularly focusing on Lux in the past chapter or so and I'm wondering if that's because Lux might be next? I'm not sure, but it also seems as though when things started looking up for the girls a little bit, everyone was successful in their efforts except Lux because of the drama with Mr.Oliphant and Eugie Kent, which ultimately left Lux as "the chorus girl whose absence no one noticed" (111). So i'm feeling like Lux might be the next one to commit suicide, but i'm also noticing that we're a little bit less than half way through the book and still the only one who has died is Cecilia so maybe it will happen for a few of them pretty much all at once, like a chain reaction. 

Another thing I noticed is still this whole number 13 thing, it continues to come up almost every single time that numbers are brought into the text... "the photo was taken on October 13.." (89) and "first Channel 2, then Channel 4, then finally Channel 7." (97) [2+4+7=13]. I might be over analyzing that part but it just seems way too repeated to not mean something.

From Jack

I can't create a new post so I guess I'll make one here. First off, I agree with Jessica and AJ. I was convinced that the narrators were the same age as the girls, but as AJ said, they may be just a couple of years older than Cecilia. Also, the idea that they all have their own vivid memories relates back to the topic we were talking about in class today. Maybe each of the boys have their own assumptions, or what they call "vivid memories" and believe is real. As readers, we are now struggling with the main question: What is the truth?
Now, since I can't create a new post, I'll write here about what I found interesting in the reading tonight. I observed (and found interesting) that the boys were so infatuated with Trip. Maybe, they're obsessed because he's a womanizer or because they want to figure out his connection with Lux. What do you guys think? Does Trip possess truthful knowledge?
Second, I noticed the narrator using words like: "reliable" and sentences like: "we imagined" when talking about what they "knew" about Trip. Do you guys think the boys are creating a whole new story, full of hypotheses? Is any information here valuable?

The sisters are the same

Page 39-
In Cecilia's diary she describes the sisters as the same thing just like the boys do. The boys say "Cecilia writes if her sisters and herself as a single entity"(39). Even though they realized that they weren't the same thing Cecilia had the same feelings. They say its hard to tell which sister she's talking about.

• alllottt of detail about Trip and his background...
• what's so special about Lux that attracts Trip?
• what comes over Lux suddenly that causes the "attack"?
• what's up with the girls and not looking at people when they talk to them? it's weird that everyone saw them as such angels because they're actually pretty rude
• this chapter shows a side of Lux that makes her seem weirder and less put together than i previously thought she was
• why are there animal/creature references being used through this book? what's the connection?
• Why did Willard crumple a dead leaf in Lux's hair? Nature reference?

So my observations this time are:

* I was surprised when I found out that Lux was related to someone like Trip Fontaine. I think that her parents found out about this, and they grounded her badly. This might have led her to suicide. Or maybe I'm being a bit exaggerated...

* Mr Lisbon is obsessed with having her daughters under control to a point that they seem like strangers to everyone else. But when he finds out about Lux and Trip (he probably found out about this) maybe he feels that he failed as a father, and he tries to fix this becoming more strict.

* I know this has few to do with this reading, but where did the boys come with the idea that all the Lisbon girls were like Lux?

So it's the boys' point of view, but at the very end of page 36 the narrator says, "Though she had spoken only rarely and had no real friends, everybody possessed his own vivid memories of Cecilia. Some of us had held her for five minutes as a baby while Mrs. Lisbon ran back into the house to get her purse."

Why is it that "everybody possessed HIS own vivid memories"?
and who is "some of us"? Because these boys that are narrating seem to be too young to have been there, holding Cecilia, when she was a baby.

Cecilia

An observation that I noticed from last nights reading was that at the beginning of the chapter, the narrators state: "we didn't understand why Cecilia had killed herself the first time and we understood even less when she did it twice" (29). I was wondering why would they phrase it like this. "She killed herself the first time" like she never was saved. Why do you guys think that they phrased it like this instead of saying attempted suicide to tried to commit suicide and act like she succeeded.

Questions and observations

So my observations are:

* The mother seems to be too concerned about the cemetery of her child. And this leads my questions: why is he so concerned about this?

* The narrators are definitely boys, and mostly the same age as the Lisbon brothers.

* Some of the sisters don't seem to be too concerned about Cecilia's state after attempting suicide. Lux, for example, says that Cecilia's fine in the bath, but she is stinking the house with bath salts.

* Why do the kids think that everyone is not used to loosing someone, when most of them have parents that fought in the war?

Observations

- The family seems so detached from each other. It doesn't seem like there is any unity that usually exists in a family

- Something is missing from the book because it is being told from the boys' point of view, but I can't really explain it.

- Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon do not seem to be aware of the state of mind of their daughters

Observations

So my number one observation for this chapter was the word choice that Eugenides uses. He has a ton of strange word choices that make very little sense, but still brings a tone across the reading. For example, he uses "porcelain throat" on page 57 to describe the toilet as Mr. Lisbon is flushing down a retainer. It sets a more serious tone then toilet would. It makes the book a little more interesting

observations and questions

• Mr and Mrs Lisbon and the girls are all losing it, but don't know how to come together to get through it
• The narrators are actually starting to show some concern for the girls and interest in how they are feeling as apposed to just being creepy and obsessed with them
• they're all dealing with the grief in different ways
• to the outside world, the girls are trying to make it seem as though they aren't affected by what has happened
• a theme of seeing things is starting to come up, between the supposed suitcase as well as Cecilia's ghost
• Where is Mrs. Lisbon?
• Could the parents lack of ability to try and make their daughters feel better be a cause for their later suicides?
• Why is it that even after Cecilia's death, the one thing that Mrs.Lisbon acknowledges during the funeral is her bitten nails?
• Could the sweeping away of the fish flies be representing an attempt to get Cecilia out of everyone's minds? and then the return of the "crickets" not being seen but being heard be Cecilia's memory?

FROM JACK

Area of Interest:
1. I'm still interested in the concept of these suicides being routine.
Why?

Observations:
1. Cecilia said to the doctor that: [he's] never been a thirteen-year old girl" (5) and that: "[Cecilia's] not old enough to know how bad life gets" (5).  What happened?
2. On pg.12, there is a reference to the Virgin Mary.  This relates to the world "immaculate" (1) that we saw in the first paragraph while reading.
3.  Cecilia deep fascination with Dominic is interesting.  Why?

Questions:
1. Who, really, is this "we"?
2. How reliable is Paul Baldino?  Is his story of how he found Cecilia reliable?
3. Are the Lisbons very religious?  Something to consider:
Mr. Lisbon: "We baptized her, we confirmed her, and now she believes this crap" (12).
4. I have the same question many people posted about: Why does Cecilia insist on wearing a wedding dress opposed to the hospital gown? Pg. 13
5. Is Dr. Hornicker right?  Did Cecilia really not want to kill herself?
6. Is allowing the males to come inside at the Lisbon house going to have a positive or negative effect?

Observations

-The EMS seems routine, like they have done this multiple times before
Why?
Why do they seem nonchalant about it?
Do they know anything?

-"Thirteen months earlier when the trouble began"
What is the trouble?
What does it have to do with the girls?
Who caused the trouble?

-"The last Lisbon Daughter took her turn at suicide"
Why are they committing suicide?
Why are they doing it in order?
Why is Cecilia wearing a wedding dress?

-"Obviously Doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl"
What does that have to do with anything?
Why does being 13 make you kill yourself?
What stresses would she be going through?

-Dominic Palazzolo
Does Cecilia get the initial idea from him?
Was she jealous?
What is going through Dominic's mind?

Chapter 1 Observations:

• I've gathered that the narrater's use of "our" is referencing him and his childhood friends, who all seem to be young, adolescent boys that enjoy spying on the Lisbon sisters.

1. If they spend so much time watching the Lisbon sisters, how could they not tell that each sister is completely different, until they see the girls at the party?
2. Are there any other girls in town? What makes the Lisbon sisters so fascinating?
3. How does finding Cecilia in the tub effect Paul Baldino?

• If the Virgin Mary photograph Cecilia was holding in the tub only served as a religious purpose, she would have been holding Jesus instead. She's somehow connecting herself to the Virgin Mary

1. What is the significance of the Virgin Mary photo she's holding?
2. Why do the boys say they have a "photocopy" of the picture here? Where is here? Where are these boys writing or telling the story from?
3. Does the wedding dress Cecilia wears link back to the Virgin Mary in any way?

• Cecilia tells the psychiatrist that trying to kill herself in the tub was only a mistake

1. If it was a mistake, why make the same mistake twice and jump out of your house?
2. Why did it take a near tragedy to make the house change?
3. What were her thoughts before she jumped off the top of the house?

• The phrase "Cecilia was out of danger" is repeated more than once

1. Is the psychiatrist right? did she really not mean to kill herself?
2. If it was a cry for help, what help did she need, from who, and why??
3. Was the psychiatrist right by telling the parents to relax their household rules? And if the father didn't agree with his wife's strictness, why did he put up with it?

• The Lisbon's house is not what Peter Sissen described

1. Does the tidy and dry-looking place represent the Lisbon family?
2. Why is it not a "heavy atmosphere of feminine chaos"? 
3. Is there anything about the Lisbon's house that makes them stand out from the rest of the street?

My Observations...for lack of a more creative title

Observations:
1. Very dismal wording in the first paragraph on page 4 with lots of references to fire
2. Also the mention of the picture of the Virgin Mary on Cecilia's chest when she was found--back to what we found out in class--Also, SHE SURVIVED...for now...so my misreading of the first line-ish of the book was actually right
3. Mr. Lisbon is portrayed as very feminine, Mrs. Lisbon as very stern and strict "Brutally cut steel-wood hair.
4. Paul Baldino, found Cecilia, saved her life...unintentionally
5. Dominic loves Diana Porter, but Cecilia is fascinated by his passion (a.k.a jumping off a house)


Questions:

1. Why does Mr. Lisbon, "follow-(ed) in the station wagon, observing the speed limit"? It's very unlike someone who just experienced the attempted suicide of one of his daughters..
2.Who is the "we" and "our" narrator(s)?
3.Why does Cecilia insist on wearing the wedding dress?

All of these questions and observations were written by page 18...so it is very possible that some questions and observations could be proven wrong in the next few pages.

Chapter 1 observations and questions

So mine are:

* The narrators are probably boys, since the mention that they talk about baseball.
* Cecilia has traumatic experiences related to being a 13-year old girl, maybe because of the strict rules of her parents. She also looks like she never had a true childhood. when she is asked about the fish flies, she replies that they die in 24 hours, they only reproduce, the don't even eat.
* The narrators are used to the idea of the Lisbon daughters attempting suicide. many times they mention this very casually.
* Cecilia's mom is not to delicate with her after attempting suicide. When Cecilia asks her if she can leave the party, her mother responds "Fine, we'll have fun without you".
* Everyone in the neighborhood seems to be very interested in these girls, despite all the weird stuff going on in the Lisbon family.

My questions are:

* What could go so wrong that all the daughters want to commit suicide?
* What's so horrible about being a 13- year old girl according to Cecilia?
* Who are these narrators and why do they know so much about the Lisbon daughters?

Chapter 1

Observations

1. I have noticed some references to religion, the main one being the reoccurring theme of the Virgin Mary. 
2. I think that the narrators are multiple boys because the text says "In blue blazers, with khaki trousers and clip-on neckties, WE walked along..." (22)
3. The wedding dress is important...
1. I think that weddings/Virgins/Virgin Mary/love are all going to come together in some way
4. The author writes a lot of detail about the color of things in the novel. (red/yellow/etc)
5. I found the word "calamity" on page 15

Questions

1. Why is their society so sad? (page 16)
2. Why did Cecilia say "It was a mistake"
3. WHY!!!!-What is so awful?

Chapter 1 Observations and Questions

So for my five observations, I noticed that:

• The only person who shows any sort of emotion to the suicide attempts is Mrs.Lisbon.
• The lack of emotion towards any of the events in the story emphasizes the fact that Mrs.Lisbon is emotional.
• Instead of at all addressing what was going on with Cecilia, Mr. and Mrs.Lisbon keep a close eye on her, loosen the home rules a little bit, and act like it never happened. They also do not talk about it with anyone which not only shows a lack of ability to interact and help their own daughter but also shows that they are ashamed.
• Considering the other girls' reactions to Cecilia's first suicide attempt, they're attempts to spend time with her after the fact, and they're general attitudes in comparison to Cecilia's make it particularly hard to believe that the other four have the same emotional troubles to the extent where they would attempt suicide (unless there is a sudden random and extreme change in each of their lives).
• The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon chose to throw a party "for" Cecilia shows not only poor parenting with Cecilia in particular because they should have been able to see that their daughter does not succeed well in these social situations, but bad parenting in general that their way to try to "fix her" was throwing her a party with a bunch of people they use to be too strict to let the girls interact with. 

My questions are:

• What is the big importance with the number 13?
• Why do Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon more or less keep their daughters on lock down their whole life and then suddenly decide to allow all sorts of strangers in their home?
• Why is everyone so aggressively intrigued with the lives of the Lisbons?(To a creepy extent)

Hey there,

So, this has relatively nothing to do with the book, but i did have to make a post, so I thought i'd share an idea i had about a possible thesis topic. I liked the discussion we had in class on Friday about survival, false realities and literature, and it got me thinking about movies and their innate ability of mesmerizing and portraying an ideal and beautiful reality that, for 2 hours+, a viewer can believe is true. Books can provide a very accessible escape, but today, movies are vastly popular, the most they have ever been, and i'm curious as to why (beyond just short attention spans). It's apparent that visuals are aesthetically pleasing and easier for a viewer to follow, but it's difficult for simple visuals to convince a viewer to the point of empathy, and i think this moment is where music comes into play. I recently read about a study done where people were convinced of a terrible calamity about to happen to themselves, then separately convinced of this same calamity inflicted upon a close relative or friend, and finally convinced of the event inflicted upon a complete stranger. Obviously, the persons felt little for the complete stranger, but the interesting part is that these peoples' brain activities were monitored and it showed similar (visual) reactions when convinced of self injury or the same thing for a close relative or friend. This is basically a visual display of empathy. Yet, how then, do teenage girls cry during 'The Notebook' and boys feel the drama of 'Platoon'; such actions would be signs of empathy for complete strangers. I would like to prove that music is one of the main tools in which movies evoke empathy for complete strangers.

An idea about Blue

Hi guys

I just wanted to share an idea I had about Blue. I think that she wants her story not to be a failure, and to do that she does what her father expects from her, even though he abandoned her after all those traumatic experiences. She tries not to fail her father because he is the only person she knows completely, therefore she knows what he would consider a failure or a success. When he abandons her she realizes that she doesn't even know her own father, but she doesn't know any better than what her father taught her.