Jeffrey Eugenides is an American novelist and short story writer, well-known for writing "The Virgin Suicides," "Middlesex," and "The Marriage Plot." "The Virgin Suicides" was turned into a movie and "Middlesex" received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. "The Virgin Suicides" tells the story of five sisters who commit suicide over the course of a year. After their suicides, the neighborhood boys observe them from afar trying to figure out the reasons why they took their own lives. Throughout the novel, various symbols are shown such as the laminated picture of the Virgin Mary which is seen when Cecilia attempts to commit suicide but fails, the bra on the crucifix shown when Peter Sisson goes into the Lisbon girl's room, and the wedding dress that is worn by Cecilia when she commits suicide. These three main symbols are used in the novel to transmit something to the reader and this analysis will try to decode the meaning of these symbols. 1. "She didn't say a word, but when they parted her hands they found the laminated picture of the Virgin Mary she held against her budding chest." The plastic card of the Virgin Mary was held by Cecilia during her first suicide attempt. According to the Bible, Mary was made pregnant by God as an act of Immaculate Conception, she then gave birth to Jesus while still being a Virgin. When Jesus died on the cross, his followers gained salvation and eternal life. In the American Catholicism practiced by the Lisbon family, Mary plays an important role as a repairer for the sins of Eve. In the novel, many times before the suicides, there is a clear forecast of the vents that will come, suggesting that's what will come is inevitable. And as it is believed Lux, Bonnie, Mary and Therese's suicides are seen as a response to Cecilia's suicide. In a sense these suicides were ironic because The Virgin Mary symbolizes extreme purity and suicide is a mortal sin, and finally because Mary herself was not directly rela