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?
I strongly agree with the connection between the flies and the girls, Callie, but right when I read this, I realized that the boys are basically the same (thanks). Although they still live, they are latched on this ethereal idea that the girls are; they're always making love to Lux; they spend almost every night watching Lux make love through their binoculars; their entire existence is solely based off of the girls. It's like they've become like their fathers, once full of mirth in war, and now emotionless and uninterested, without actually going to war or anything like that. Also, we have discussed how the boys have combined the girls into one being, but we're doing the same with the boys. Of course this isn't much of a fault on our part, as the boys are as homogeneous as they originally pictured the girls. We have had trouble really discerning their age and such throughout the book, and this has to be on purpose. The idea of the fish-flies originally stated, they're born, they reproduce, they die, had a strong suggestion of a focus to the females because of where it was placed; however, it's not like the fish-flies they're reproducing with have any more of a voice. Look at what the boys are doing. It's true that the girls don't even get to tell their own story, but the boys don't even have one to tell. So raises the question of whether it's better to have a life you can never speak of, or spend your entire life via others'. Thanks again, Callie.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the "woah" title of this post!!!! After reading this section and your post, I now have a better understanding as to WHY the boys/narrators are still "obsessed" with these girls over ten years later. They were the only ones who had the physical chance to save the girls. The boys were in the house when the girls were in the process of killing themselves or no more than five minutes after. There are of course a bunch of "if onlys" but if only the lights had been on, they boys could have stopped all of this. If i had been so tangibly close to four suicides, it would still HAUNT me later in life too. In this way I can understand our narrators better, and I had had the hunch that you would only be still so entwined in something over a decade later if you felt some sort of guilt. Whether the boys feel guilt or not, I now see where these boys are coming from and how this life changing day can never be forgotten or even left behind.
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