Suicide

[noema]

Here's an anti-suicidal poem by Dorothy Parker:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

[WrdOrnitologist]

Is suicide the ultimate stand of ones freedom or the last act of his trapped mind?

[noema]

Is suicide the ultimate stand of ones freedom or the last act of his trapped mind?

It is certainly an act of freeing oneself from life, or rather this life. But what is the freedom to? What is suicide a free pursuit of?

[waryan]

Is suicide the ultimate stand of ones freedom or the last act of his trapped mind?

Both I imagine most authors would argue, and do and always will, and both perspectives provide for great literature. I think if suicide isn't done correctly in a novel however, it can very easily seem as a cop-out. I'm thinking of Donna Tart's the Secret History, but that's just my opinion.

[noema]

It is almost impossible to know what goes on inside the mind of a person before he commits suicide. I agree that representing suicide in novels in a convincing way is a very difficult thing to achieve. It can never be simple.

[Bitterfly]

Have you read Durkheim's book about suicide? I saw it in a bookshop today and was wondering whether it was worth reading.

[noema]

Have you read Durkheim's book about suicide? I saw it in a bookshop today and was wondering whether it was worth reading.

Yes, I've read considerable part of Durkheim's Suicide. It's a study in sociology and the data that it presents are outdated. But the tripartite scheme of 'egoistic', 'altruistic' and 'anomic' suicides that it posits is still relevant. Apart from these three kinds, he also talks about 'fatalistic' suicide in relation to the suicides in African slaves. Despite its antiquarian approach the problem, it remains a classic in suicidology. It's worth reading only if you're really interested in things like epidemiology. It's not a philosophical book. Personally, I liked Jean Amery's 'On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death'.

[Bitterfly]

Thank you. I'll try to get hold of a copy then, when I've finished all the books I have to read (in about a year, then : ).

One example of suicide that struck me (you probably already know about): Lucrece's in Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece".

[noema]

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson


Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

[chasestalling]

Indeed, suicide has been often interpreted as an aesthetic resistance. The dead body of the suicide becomes a site of protest against all those forces that wouldn't let the subject sustain its notions of beauty or order. In death, the suicide attains a wholeness of being that she was denied in life. But then, sometimes suicide is also committed with an afterlife in view and a greater degree of spirituality is involved in this case.

The character belonging to your first category obviously sees suicide as a cry for help, not necessarily leading to death. The paradox is, in some cases these appeals, in momentary lapses of control, do lead to death accidentally and cannot be called 'suicide' at all because we do not have the sanction to characterize them as completely intentional. And hence, we are confronted with the problem of defining suicide.

is it sane or insane and in our attempts to pin it down to one or the other we'll find ourselves back on the starting blocks.

as to afterlife, let's not kid ourselves; our legacy on earth is all that we have and to speak of ourselves in the collective is a noble way of looking at things if it weren't only for the unheard, the unsung, the oppressed, suppressed, and the exploited in which case suicide isn't such an evil as we make it out to be.

[PabloQ]

...your reference to Hunter Thompson reminded me of David Foster Wallace and also by extension to Kurt Cobain's 'it is better to burn out than fade away'.

Not to pick a nit, but Neal Young wrote that in reference to Sid Savage. Cobain used it in his suicide note.

Hemingway's suicide was largely due to his failing health resulting from years of alcohol abuse.

Richard Brautigan is another member of the eat a shotgun club, I believe. To an extent, some writers like Thompson and Cobain romanticized the legend of Hemingway's suicide and adopted it as their way out.

In terms of fiction, The House of Mirth ends in a tragic suicide. It's fairly romantic in nature because Lily gives up hope that she can reclaim her reputation or social standing or love. Her lover shows up in time to find her body, but not to save her. It's reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet, a double suicide that I can't believe hasn't been brought up as yet.

[AuntShecky]

Back in 1972 I read The Savage God by A. Alvarez, which was a literary study upon the topic of suicide. If memory serves -- we're going back over 30 years, the book was quite good. I just read that the author was a close friend of Sylvia Plath, and thus used the material he witnessed from her tragic life. .

The act itself is bound up with all kinds of religious beliefs. For some it can be a literal self-sacrifice toward their God, for others it is a sin. Suicide can even be a political statement, such as Buddhist monks setting themselves afire to protest untenable injustice, and as we have seen in recent years, suicide can be both a political and religious act which stems from misguided fanaticism which leads to horrifically tragic results.

Going back to the material put forth by Alvarez's book, I just don't buy suicide as an aesthetic act, though it can be a plot device: think of Ophelia, Romeo and Juliet.

Religious notions aside, we have to remember that the instinct for self-preservation is quite strong, much stronger than the "death wish." If something goes amiss with the mechanism of fighting for life, I would have to say that there might be some sort of pathology present.

If a individual is in much physical pain, because of a disease that of course would have an effect upon his or her decision to remain alive. (I'm not getting into a discussion of the morality of euthanasia, however.)

But in other cases, some kind of psychological disturbance might seduce a person into thinking about suicide: really severe depression, drugs, or a mental illness. That's justmy opinion as a layperson. (I'm not a doctor. I don't even
play one on TV.)

All I'm saying is: anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help.

Now.

[Joreads]

[QUOTE=AuntShecky;646453]
All I'm saying is: anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help.


I don't think that can be said enough. I have no idea what would be running through someones mind who was thinking of taking their own life I have never been there. But remember there are always people that you can talk to and always people that love you no matter what.

[noema]

Thanks PabloQ, I didn't know it was originally by Neil Young.
Talking of Hemingway, do you think some of his texts can be interpreted as preparations for his suicide?
Haven't read The Hose of Mirth. Will try to find it.

AuntShecky, I'm glad that you mentioned The Savage God. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read it though i come across its reference in every other book on suicide I read. However, I don't quite agree with you when you say "anyone who is even thinking about suicide should get help". We adults are programmed to think of death. Animals don't committ suicide; neither do children.

[noema]

When I have fears that I may cease to be


WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats