Comparison of American Beauty and Virgin Suicides Essay Example

align="justify">They are kept home from school during the punishment that follows the school dance. Through the narrators eyes you can see the mystery that lies behind the closed doors of the Elision's house. No one really knows the girls personally except each other, not even their parent's. Lug deals with her issues by having random sexual encounters on the rooftops for all of neighborhood to see, and to blatantly defy her parent's. While Cecilia ends hers by committing suicide. Mr.. Lisbon seems so UT of it and lonely in one scene as he is talking to the plants while waters them.

Both Lisbon parent's do not seem to have much of a social life; this to makes them have feelings of separation from normal society. In the end, the "solution" to the girls' loneliness is to Just end it all together, suicide. Image is an important role in suburban life. When you drive into the neighborhoods you see beautiful homes, with perfectly mowed lawns. Inside the house, is like a display of your family, so most of the time the home can feel like a museum to those who live in it. In American Beauty, Carolyn is overwhelmed with the image her family portrays.

She does not want others to see them for who they really are. She goes out of her way to make the yard, filled with roses, look beautiful. The d©cord of her house is fancy and it is as if she is Just trying to fit in to the standards of the rest of her neighborhood or "keeping up with the Jones". In one scene, Lester tries to get Carolyn to

loosen up and rekindle their love, but she panics when she sees that his beer may spill onto the couch, and the moment is ruined. Carolyn also tries to control what Jane wears so that she does not vive of the wrong impression of their family.

Her obsession with image pushes her daughter and husband away. In The Virgin Suicides image is shown after the death of their first daughter. The priest even tells them that he listed the death as an accident, as if to protect the families image. The Elision's are not a rich family like the Abraham's, so you do not see the same fretting of self-image. The surrounding neighbors all worry about their own image, they all have magnificent homes with fancy cars, as the girls point out on the way to the dance. American Beauty and The homes.

That people are too wrapped up in appearances to notice what is really going on behind the closed doors of a suburban home. Also that people will put up with things that make them unhappy Just to fit into the social norms of society, because divorcing or talking about their problems could Just make things worse, but most of all make them look bad to society. Both Lester and the five Lisbon girls find their own escapes, but it is not in the most ideal of manners. These movies tell that confinement, loneliness, and self-image, are not a way to live life.

Worrying to much hat other people think in the end, may ruin what a household has worked so hard at creating, a family. These films remind us that life is

meant to live to its fullest, in the happiest of ways. People are only given once chance to live their life, and living it in the ways these families did may not be the most appealing of ways to experience life. Trapped behind the closed doors of suburbia, always trying to keep up with the Jones. Works Cited Copula, Sofia, Dir. The Virgin Suicides. Paramount Classics, 1999. Film Mended, Sam, Dir. American Beauty. Trademarks, 1999. Film