I am moving on to suicide. This time I have read the next section, Suicide, in The Oxford Book of Death. Once again, this is a topic that I have not really put much energy into thinking about. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not now that I am in this humanities class.
The first few entries that I read were somewhat difficult for me to interpret. Specifically, I found Shakespeare’s and Emily Dickinson’s entries to be a little difficult for me to follow. I was not able to create an image in my mind which made it hard for me to read. Virginia Woolf, on the other hand, had an interesting letter to her husband, Leonard dated March 18, 1941. After reading this entry, it was clear to me that she was writing this letter at a very bad time in her life. She wrote that she hears voices, she is spoiling his life, and he could work if she were gone. She is extremely depressed and basically says goodbye to him in this letter. She ends the entry with, “I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.” She seemed to realize that he was entirely patient with her and incredibly good. I think she was thanking him for that in this last statement. Woolf used powerful words in this short entry.
I read another entry by Camus, op. cit. “I have heard of a post-war writer who, after having finished his first book, committed suicide to attract attention to his work. Attention was in fact attracted, but the book was judged no good.” I followed that direction of thinking too. Suicide is not the way to attract attention to a book. He killed himself but the book still stunk! Here is another letter that caught my focus. It was written by Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924), of himself, in a letter, tr. Ronald Hayman. “You, who can’t do anything, think you can bring off something like that? How can you even dare to think about it? If you were capable of it, you certainly wouldn’t be in need of it.” He is calling himself a wimp right from the start! He admits he cannot do anything. So, how would HE be able to do THAT? I saw a little humor in this one. Last but not least, I came across the letter thanking God for not allowing him success in suicide. This was a letter to The Times dated October 24, 1980. Jean M. Haslam wrote that he attempted suicide several times ten years earlier. He states he is happily married and had an unshakeable religious faith now. It made me glad to see that he was able to turn his life around.