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.
I really don't think you could have said this any better. It makes perfect sense, but the question that still bugs me is WHY Mrs. Lisbon feels the need to protect her girls this way? like what can a mother gain from this?
ReplyDeleteShe must notice how miserable her daughters are and by preventing them from the love of any boy, the girls are never going to leave that house until they die, alone. What mother shows their love this way? Does Mrs. Lisbon act this way because of an incident in the past that the boys are unaware of? Because that also is very possible. We don't know anything. For all we know, there could have been another Lisbon sister in the past.
I agree that Mrs. Lisbon wanted the girls to be prim and proper, and because she holds them on such a tight leash to be such a person, it only provokes them to rebel even more.
It's also sort of ironic how someone who has so much love for her daughters and has that need to control them can be so naive of their well-being. You would think that the mother would realize how much she's squeezing the life out of her kids, but instead she continues to try and control them more. Anytime the Lisbon girls try to express themselves, and do something that Mrs. Lisbon doesn't approve, Mrs. Lisbon feels the need to punish them, and restrict them even more. This is a classic example of how one can love too much. Mrs. Lisbon is blinded by her love, which makes her naive, and also makes her appear cold and uncaring to the boys.
ReplyDeleteNice post, Sam! Based on Collin's comment, I agree while that Mrs. Lisbon is thinking she is doing the best for her daughters, she really is being too controlling. That has a negative impact on her daughters. The restrictions Mrs. Lisbon puts on her kids makes them suffer.
ReplyDelete