Suicide in English Literature

Suicide, the act of deliberately killing oneself, is a prominent action in many important works of English literature. Authors use the suicide of a character to portray defiance, despair, love, or honor. Whether it is written as the ultimate act of devotion or the result of depression, the act of suicide was and is a prevalent action within the context of English literature.

Suicide in the Novel

According to Lorna Ruth Wiedmann, novelistic suicide patterns first emerge in the nineteenth century. She categorizes nineteenth-century works based on five themes: ‘murder-followed-by-suicide; the survivor of suicide; age and the suicide; the suicide’s choice of method; and gender and suicide.’ [Wiedmann, Lorna Ruth, “Suicide in American Fiction, 1798-1909” (diss. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995)] Kevin Grauke states that suicide serves an "ambivalent rhetorical function" [Grauke, Kevin, "I cannot bear to be hurted anymore" Suicide as Dialectical Ideological Sign in Nineteenth-Century American Realism] in the works of the nineteenth-century. Authors such as Kate Chopin, Ernest Hemingway, and Virginia Woolf include themes of suicide in their writing.

Suicide in Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is one of the most famous authors of all time. Shakespeare’s characters commit suicide in several of his plays. Perhaps most famously, the young lovers Romeo and Juliet both commit suicide in the final scene of Romeo and Juliet. Suicide also occurs in Julius Caesar when Brutus and Cassius both kill themselves. Othello commits suicide with a dagger after murdering his love in a crime of passion in Othello. The play, Antony and Cleopatra, ends with five suicides, including the deaths of both Antony and Cleopatra. [>Wymer, Rowland, "Suicide in the Plays of Shakespeare"] Also Ophelia comits suicide in Hamlet after finding out he doesn't really love her.

Controversy

The subject of suicide itself is controversial. While the act of suicide can be symbolic in literature, the act itself still possesses the ability to cause controversy in the real world. Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, was extremely controversial when it was released in 1899. Toni Morrison gained fame and critics through novels such as Beloved. [ [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-bio.html Toni Morrison Biography] ]

Some authors who have created characters that commit suicide have committed suicide themselves. Ernest Hemingway shot himself in 1961. Some of his short stories included suicidal themes. [Berman, Jeffrey, "Surviving Literary Suicide" (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999)] The poet Sylvia Path committed suicide by self-asphyxiation in 1963.

Thoughts on Suicide in English Literature

“Once suicide was accepted as a common fact of society- not as a noble Roman alternative, nor as the mortal sin it had been in the Middle Ages, nor as a simple cause to be pleaded or warned against- but simply as something people did, often and without much hesitation, like committing adultery, then it automatically became a common property of art." - Alvarez, 1971. [Alvarez, A. (235) The Savage God: A Study of Suicide, 1971 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990)]

Notes

Bibliography

*Frank, Lucy E. (ed.) "Representations of Death in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture" (Aldershot, Hants, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate Pub., c2007)
*Gentry, Deborah S "The Art of Dying: Suicide in the Works of Kate Chopin and Sylvia Path" (Lang, Peter Publishing, Incorporated, 2006)
*Kushner, Howard "Self-Destruction in the Promised Land: A Psychocultural Biology of American Suicide" (New Brunswick New Jersey: Rutgers University Press)
* [http://classiclit.about.com/od/dyingdeath/tp/aatp_suicidestu.htm Studies of Suicide in Literature]