Common Core Standards
The Importance of Flashbacks
Book: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Type: Point of View
Concept: Point of View – how the use of flashbacks changes how the
Lisbon sisters are viewed
Primary Subject Area: English
Secondary Subject Areas: N/A
Common Core Standards Addressed:
Grades 9-10
Grades 11-12
Key Ideas and Details
Key Ideas and Details
o Analyze how complex characters (e.g. those
o Analyze how an author’s choices concerning
o
with multiple or conflicting motivations)
develop over the course of a text, interact with
other characters, and advance the plot or
develop the theme.
Analyze how an author’s choices concerning
how to structure a text, order events within it
(e.g. parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g.
pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as
mystery, tension, or surprise.
how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g. the
choice of where to begin or end a story, the
choice to provide a comedic or traffic
resolution) contribute to its overall structure
and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
The Importance of Flashbacks: Common Core Standards
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Lesson Plan
The Importance of Flashbacks
Book: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Type: Point of View
Overview:
Throughout the text, but especially in Chapter Three, Eugenides
uses flashback to tell us more about the Lisbon sisters. The
students will see how Eugenides manipulates time in order to
provide readers a new view of the Lisbon sisters, one that
wouldn’t exists with the information he provides through
flashback.
Materials:
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Copies of The Virgin Suicides
Notebook paper
A writing implement
Chalkboard / Whiteboard
Objectives:
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The students will see how Eugenides’s use of flashback
further characterizes the Lisbon sisters and how those
flashbacks help explain their behavior in the narrative
present of the novel.
Students can compare what is directly related as flashback
to the information that comes during the narrative present
of the novel and examine how one informs the other.
Warm-Up Activity:
From Page 69-87, Eugenides presents Trip Fontaine as an adult,
some years after the events depicted in the narrative present of
the novel. Find and circle each time that Trip is referenced as an
older man recalling how he used to feel about Lux Lisbon. Try
and distinguish how much time has passed between the time
frame of the story and when Trip is recounting his feelings and
contact with Lux.
Short Lecture & Partner Activities:
In Partners, discuss how the Trip Fontaine of the narrative present
differs from the adult Trip Fontaine we see between pages 69-87.
How is he similar? How is he different? Why does Jeffrey
Eugenides give us this glimpse of the adult version of Trip
Fontaine here? What purpose does it serve in the novel?
Discussion Wrap-Up: By using flashback to inform the reader of many events that take place prior to the main events of the
book and by using flash-forward techniques to give the reader a glimpse of the older Trip Fontaine,
Jeffrey Eugenides necessarily expands the world of this novel to include more than the story of the
suicides of the Lisbon girls. By manipulating time, Eugenides provides potential motivations for the
suicides and he also shows, through flash-forward, that the deaths have had long-lasting ramifications for
others.
The Importance of Flashbacks: Lesson Plan
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Lesson Plan
The Importance of Flashbacks
Book: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Type: Point of View
Writing Activities/Evaluations: Analytical:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said that memories are like a broken mirror. Analyze this quote in the
context of this chapter; analyzing how Trip’s accounts of Lux could be potentially distorted due to Trip’s
own experiences following the main events of the novel. How is memory distorted over time and how is
that exposed through the narrator’s representations of the Lisbon sisters? Your answer should be at least
a page long, double-spaced.
Creative:
Write a scene of at least 1.5 pages depicting a character from the book. The scene should be set in the deep
past, prior to the events depicted in the book, or should take place some time after the events of the book.
You might choose, for instance, to write a scene in which one of the boys is in college. Or you could
choose to write a scene set in the past, in which Mrs. Lisbon is a little girl. Attempt to match Eugenides’s
diction and tone. Imagine that this scene is going to be added to the novel itself and therefore must add
something to the text. The Importance of Flashbacks: Lesson Plan
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Discussion & Comprehension Questions
The Importance of Flashbacks
•
Book: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Type: Point of View
How does time change Trip’s feelings towards Lux? Do you think that he idealizes her
now that she is gone or do you believe that he really did feel that she was his one true
love?
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What does is mean when the narrator says that Trip Fontaine’s love for Lux is so true
because it “never had to survive real life?” Why did it not have to survive real life? Why
does this lack of love “plague him”?
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How do the spectacles of Trip’s addictive personality versus his solely desirable
personality in high school change the way in which he sees his previous emotions? Do
you believe that he wishes to revert back to his old feelings or that his new sentiments
accurately portray old sentiments?
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How does this passage contradict stereotypes of girls chasing boys? How does Trip’s
account pose Lux as taking on the more masculine role?
The Importance of Flashbacks: Discussion & Comprehension Questions
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Key Vocabulary
The Importance of Flashbacks
Book: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Type: Point of View
Word:
Definition:
Detoxification
The process of removing toxic substances
Anticlimactic
of or relating to a sudden change from an impressive to a ludicrous
style.
Enviable
Arousing envy or causing jealousy
Detritus
Loose material; disintegrated or eroded matter
Initiation
Ceremony in which a person is officially made a member of a group
Apprehend
Arrest for a crime; understand or perceive
Intractable
Hard to control or deal with; difficult, stubborn (of a person)
Susurration
Whisper, murmur
Reticent
Shy, unwilling to speak
Craven
Lacking courage entirely; implies contempt
Juggernaut
A massive and unstoppable force or movement that crushes anything in
its path
The Importance of Flashbacks: Key Vocabulary
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Text References
The Importance of Flashbacks
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Book: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Grade Level: 9-12
Lesson Type: Point of View
“No one knew how Trip and Lux had met, or what they had said to each other, or
whether the attraction was mutual. Even years later, Trip was reticent on the subject, in
accord with his vows of faithfulness to the four hundred and eighteen girls and women
he had made love to during his long career. He would only tell us, ‘I’ve never gotten
over that girl, man. Never.’ In the desert, with the shakes, he had sickly-looking wads of
yellow skin under his eyes, but the eyes themselves clearly looked back to a verdant
time. Gradually, through incessant coaxing, and owing in large part to the recovering
substance abuser’s need to talk nonstop, we managed to cobble together the story of
their love.” (P. 75)
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“’She was the still point of the turning world,’ he told us, quoting Eliot, whose Collected
Poems he had found on the shelf of the detoxification center. For the eternity that Lux
Lisbon looked at him, Trip Fontaine looked back, and the love he felt at that moment,
truer than all subsequent loves because it never had to survive real life, still plagued
him, even now in the desert, with his looks and health wasted.” (P. 78)
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“He laid his head back on the headrest and opened his mouth to ease the constriction in
his chest, when suddenly the air inside the car churned. He felt himself grasped by his
long lapels, pulled forward and pushed back, as a creature with a hundred mouths
started sucking the marrow from his bones. She said nothing as she came on like a
starved animal, and he wouldn’t have known who it was if it hadn’t been for the taste of
her watermelon gum, which after the first few torrid kisses he found himself chewing.”
(P. 85-6)
The Importance of Flashbacks: Text References
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