discussed in the introduction, character is not determined in the biblical text of Genesis but Eve’s rather in the subsequent theological interpretations of that text that have built her character far beyond what the text says. Similarly, the conceptions of the Lisbon girls extend far narrators’ beyond their objective understanding of the girls. In both instances, rather than accept a lack of understanding or access to a identity, men have narrated the story of women in a way woman’s that fits with their agenda and fantasies to create a Whore or a Madonna. This narration has been maintained throughout Judeo-Christian society by the male gaze, as evidenced in The Virgin the last and most modern novel on the historical timeline of my thesis. Suicides, The Male Gaze: Projecting the Madonna onto the Woman The male gaze within the novel can be understood specifically as a gaze that seeks to normalize, objectify, and control the object at which the gaze is directed under the confines of a patriarchal society. Laura Mulvey coined the male in her 1975 article Visual term ‘the gaze’ where she claimed, Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The “pleasure determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled woman performs within the narrative, the gaze of the spectator accordingly…A [audience] and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined”. This is particularly evident in as the reader is forced to participate in the The Virgin Suicides, voyeurism and styling of the girls into erotic and mythologized figures. It is the male narrators’ narrators that actively construct the girls identity, however at the end of the novel they manipulate this gaze to reject their passive role within it. Up to that point however, it is clear through the voyeuristic gaze of the narrators and their repeated consideration of the five girls as doubles of one another and a singular object rather than individual persons, that the employment
discussed in the introduction, Eve’s character is not determined in the biblical text of Genesis but rather in the subsequent theological interpretations of that text that have built her character far beyond what the text says. Similarly, the narrators’ conceptions of the Lisbon girls extend far beyond their objective understanding of the girls. In both instances, rather than accept a lack of understanding or access to a woman’s identity, men have narrated the story of women in a way that fits with their agenda and fantasies to create a Whore or a Madonna. This narration has been maintained throughout Judeo-Christian society by the male gaze, as evidenced in The Virgin Suicides, the last and most modern novel on the historical timeline of my thesis. The Male Gaze: Projecting the Madonna onto the Woman The male gaze within the novel can be understood specifically as a gaze that seeks to normalize, objectify, and control the object at which the gaze is directed under the confines of a patriarchal society. Laura Mulvey coined the term ‘the male gaze’ in her 1975 article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema where she claimed, “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly…A woman performs within the narrative, the gaze of the spectator [audience] and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined”. This is particularly evident in The Virgin Suicides, as the reader is forced to participate in the narrators’ voyeurism and styling of the girls into erotic and mythologized figures. It is the male narrators that actively construct the girls identity, however at the end of the novel they manipulate this gaze to reject their passive role within it. Up to that point however, it is clear through the voyeuristic gaze of the narrators and their repeated consideration of the five girls as doubles of one another and a singular object rather than individual persons, that the employment
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