SUICIDE
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You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
Lets discuss all the authors who have committed suicide.
What drives them to have higher suicide rates and what factors let to specific authors to take themselves off the map?
After four attempts on his own life, Osamu Dazai committed suicide in June 1948. His body and that of his mistress were found floating in a river in the Tokyo neighborhood of Mitaka.
There are only a few authors who have committed suicide. And while they had a good following (Hunter, Wallace). Their have been few authors who have shaped literature itself, whom have killed themselves.
During a bout of depression Hart Crane reportedly threw himself overboard after shouting "Goodbye, everybody!"
On November 25, 1970 writer Kimitake Hiraoka sliced open his belly at an army headquarter after a speech.
At age 46 our boy Dave hung himself with his belt after taping his hands together to prevent more failed attempts this time succeeding.
Alice Sheldon shot her blind, invalid husband in his sleep and then lying next to him and holding his hand shot herself. She had already intended to kill herself earlier but said she could neither leave her husband alone nor kill him.
>be a woman
>want attention
>fail fucking miserably
She was a walking stereotype
>>7861029
Indeed. Well fedora'd.
>>7861029
>be a human
>want attention
>fail fucking miserably
90% of this thread?
>>7861043
trenchant commentary anon
>>7861029
you need to read Hegel. or anything for that matter
>>7861029
Clearly you don't understand severe depression.
>>7861097
white knight spotted. why don't you go save some damsel in distress?
Guido Morselli killed himself :(
>>7861365
i don't think anons comment is biased on the fact its a woman, but rather that depression is no laughing matter
Let's not forget Hemingway, the glorious bastard. He was pretty edgy blowing his face off with a shotgun.
Why though? I'm not sure if it is known (at least I don't).
Some writers harakiri themselves due to not being able to write anymore, then there's the usual depression and disappointment about the world, people and themselves.
>>7861744
I always hear that it was the build up of head injuries that threw him off the deep end. Especially the African plane crash. Can't say for sure if thats why he did but its the most convincing theory I've heard
>>7861766
lol you said "head"
Shot himself at 67. Had run out of steam and depressed over Bush's election victory. Had always sworn to commit suicide.
>>7860999
Truly tragic.
75 years ago today she filled her pockets with stones and jumped into a river
"Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V."
>>7862173
>filled her pockets with stones and jumped into a river
lol wtf that works?
>>7861043
90% of humanity.
>>7862189
Depends upon how big the pockets were, how big the stones were, and how deep and fast the river was. Apparently she succeeded so I suppose it does work at least sometimes.
>>7860997
This one makes me the saddest :(
>>7860958
> take themselves off the map?
I always thought that this talk of demapping was only done in ONAN after the reconfiguration.
is this how americans acutually speak?
>>7861744
Electroshock therapy removed his ability to write and so he had no outlet and killed himself.
>>7862189
I had a friend who did it in high school. Actually all you have to do is exhale all the air from your lungs and you will sink
>>7862236
A lot of expressions come from literature. Plus not every poster is American here
Arthur Koestler - Suicide at age 77.
To whom it may concern.
The purpose of this note is to make it unmistakably clear that I intend to commit suicide by taking an overdose of drugs without the knowledge or aid of any other person. The drugs have been legally obtained and hoarded over a considerable period.
Trying to commit suicide is a gamble the outcome of which will be known to the gambler only if the attempt fails, but not if it succeeds. Should this attempt fail and I survive it in a physically or mentally impaired state, in which I can no longer control what is done to me, or communicate my wishes, I hereby request that I be allowed to die in my own home and not be resuscitated or kept alive by artificial means. I further request that my wife, or a physician, or any friend present, should invoke habeas corpus against any attempt to remove me forcibly from my house to hospital.
My reasons for deciding to put an end to my life are simple and compelling: Parkinson's Disease and the slow-killing variety of leukaemia (CCI). I kept the latter a secret even from intimate friends to save them distress. After a more or less steady physical decline over the last years, the process has now reached an acute state with added complications which make it advisable to seek self-deliverance now, before I become incapable of making the necessary arrangements.
I wish my friends to know that I am leaving their company in a peaceful frame of mind, with some timid hopes for a de-personalised after-life beyond due confines of space, time and matter and beyond the limits of our comprehension. This 'oceanic feeling' has often sustained me at difficult moments, and does so now, while I am writing this.
What makes it nevertheless hard to take this final step is the reflection of the pain it is bound to inflict on my surviving friends, above all my wife Cynthia. It is to her that I owe the relative peace and happiness that I enjoyed in the last period of my life – and never before.
The note was dated June 1982. Below it appeared the following:
Since the above was written in June 1982, my wife decided that after thirty-four years of working together she could not face life after my death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide
>mmmm
>>7862189
have you ever swam before? the only thing keeping you afloat is the air in you
Am I the only one who thinks pic related's suicide was quite ironic?
>be jewish
>be absolutely messianic
>"marxism needs to be more like muh judaism guize"
>commits suicide, considered the only unforgivable sin in judaism and the only thing which completely forfeits your place in the World to Come
kek
>>7862015
>over Bush's election victory
You sure it wasn't the decades of fading into obscurity, massive health issues caused by alcoholism and smoking, almost complete inability to walk, obsessive idolism of suicide and authors who committed it?
Seriously, you could write a book on the amount of self-loathing he had for himself, people give Bush to much credit.
>>7862304
same goes with all the christian writers who committed suicide. I don't think its that ironic though, they might have varying beliefs on the truth of the religion.
>>7860965
Statistically, the number of writers committing suicide is very high compared to the general population. And that's only those that do. If we're talking depressed authors the numbers are out of this world.
Richard Brautigan shot himself with a magnum following declining interest in his books. People accuse him of not being able to grow up but his last few works were, in my view, deeply cynical and hyper-self aware. Sombrero Fallout especially seemed to say, 'the writing is better when I am not even involved.'
Anyway, he was a big part of my adolescence and I've never quite been able to let him go.
>>7862356
Suicide is a sin but it's not automatic hell for most Christian denominations.
>>7860958
Heinrich von Kleist killed himself with Henriette Vogel.
They wrote a letter, sent them and killed themselves.
The letter said something as:
"We find ourselves in a embarassed situation. We are both dead in _____(name of the place) and we need someone to take our bodies and do a proper burial".
>>7862399
Wow, can you imagine being the friend who received that note?
>>7862396
I thought it was the worst sin you could commit in Catholicism at least
>>7862410
yeah, seems awful.
As we are in a /lit/ board, I recommend the book 1934 by Alberto Moravia.
The first time I saw the Kleist story was there for it was important to the main plot as the protagonist is struggling with his existence and he finds and enamour a girl obsessed with Kleist double suicide.
>>7862414
In Catholicism all mortal sins are "It depends", even suicide.
>>7862426
Thanks for the rec. I looked it up and it seems interesting.
>>7862396
Yes it is. The one unforgivable sin because you cannot ask for forgiveness.
Also most Jews don't believe in an afterlife, it's not central to Judaism. So id say it's more true of Christian writers.
>>7862433
No they're not. Catholicism is opposed to moral relativism: if something is bad it's always bad.
>>7862441
>>7862438
Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law. Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
>you cannot ask for forgiveness
We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. the Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives
>>7860958
Being in the soviet union and wanting to write about things other than tractors and concrete
>>7862438
Jews believe in reincarnation actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgul
At thirty years old, Robert E Howard was told that his mother was in an irreversible coma after a long history with tuberculosis. She had educated, encouraged, and defended him his whole life. He promptly stepped out of the hospital and shot himself, dying 8 hours later.
"All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over and the lamps expire."
Stefan Zweig killed himself at age 60. together with his 30 year wife, after being exiled to Brazil.
>>7862538
Damn, he's only 30? He looks so much older than that.
>>7860958
suicide makes sense only in hedonism (once you fail to get your pleasure). outside of hedonism, there is no reason to die, just as there is no reason to live.
Reminder that suicide the utmost expression of the faith in a self and that suicidal people do not believe in death.
suicidal people despise life so much that once they understand that they are inefficient at getting what they want, they go in the opposite direction of ''letting go'' in clinging, more than ever, to their desire of pleasures.
they cling so much that hey fail to pierce the notion of self.
if people believed in their death, they would be able to endure any pains on earth, they would not be scared of dying nor of pains.
when we believe in our death, when we believe that anything stops ''at death'' (reminder that you cannot prove that you will die, just like you cannot prove that you have been born), you do not have a problem taking a few hardships. it is not a few years of suffering which scare you, since at the end it stops.
>>7862577
And here comes the idiots who put themselves in others shoes for the sake of discrediting their hardships. Some rely on support structures that if broken mean utter mental collapse. Some are genetically outfitted with enough mental instability to randomly trigger suicidal thoughts that attack the brain until they can't bare them anymore.
Some go through pure physical torment and choose to end their life because of the pain.
There are many different reasons for suicide, but I doubt you have sort of personal insight to label all suicide as logical only under hedonism.
>>7862577
>it is not a few years of suffering which scare you, since at the end it stops.
Why go through the suffering if you can stop the suffering sooner with no ill effects?
>>7862258
>had no outlet
heh
>>7862304
well it was suicide or being tortured to death in a concentration camp by the nazis who were about to grab him. I'm sure yahweh or whatever would understand.
John Kennedy Toole at age 31 went to sleep permanently after he filled his car with its exhaust gases
>>7861705
But if I stop laughing I might actually kill myself.
>>7862173
Goat suicide note desu
There is a reason v-wolf is considered the one worthwhile female author
suicide in old age isn't the same as killing yourself in your prime
>>7862791
What would it matter anyway?
![220px-Philipp_Mainlaender[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/H4p5WNN.png "220px-Philipp_Mainlaender[1].png")
on the night on April 1, 1876, Mainländer hanged himself in his residence in Offenbach, using a pile of copies of The Philosophy of Redemption (which had arrived the previous day from his publisher) as a platform. He was thirty-four years old
Hands down, the most /lit/ suicide out there.
>>7862577
nice pasta son
>>7862399
Kek
I think there are a combination of factors. One, authors tend to make less money then other people, and those that don't make it tend to be abjectly poor, I think this would be the most significant factor.
A decent counter argument to the one lined above would be the variety of famous authors that committed suicide. I think in the majority of cases of famous author suicides, the authors had some sort of mental illness or serious issue that was troubling them. I think we could make the argument that these illnesses and issues are what made the authors interesting to read in the first place.
I think the final element is massive fluctuations in free time. Most of us are distracted 24/7 from any sort depression/existential dread with responsibilities such as class or work. These things provide a structured means of providing significance to our own lives. I think if I finished a book and just say on my hands on a week trying to think of the next thing to write, I would might think about pulling a Hemingway as well.
>>7862805
She was a cutie. To bad there feminism made her depressed
TECHNICALLY he never wrote anything!
>>7862426
fuck off svid
What are your rationals on suicide?
I feel like with my long term (current?) previous battle with clinical mental illness I will be stuck in this inescapable gravity pulling me towards the void.
Society doesn't have my, or people in similar positions, best interests in heart. The universe is just completely ambivalent about it all. I have myself working against me.
A pretty good heuristic for analyzing whether experiences are net positive or negative is to think whether one would prefer to be asleep for the duration of it. As long as you tend to prefer getting married and going to work and dealing with problems over simply being unconscious through the lot of it if given the option, suicide isn't rational.
I feel like there honestly isn't a moment in my life where I wish I was awake. Might be slightly emotionally bias. Though honestly I haven't done it yet because it's just a hassle when anhedonic.
>>7862944
What mental illness would this be?
>>7860958
1/2
I think that many of these artists tend to self-consciously struggle to fulfil an image of themselves built on preconceived notions of what a good life looks like. Usually, this constructed self-image is built from abandoning unappealing personas from the past (the childhood Mishima or Hemingway sissy), and latching on to their own conception of what would make them a man; whether this involves becoming a decadent aesthetic with delusions of Nipponese glory, or fulfilling the hard-drinking journalist archetype. They usually tend to kill themselves when living means giving up their hard-earned individualism to the hands of age or physical ailments.
Whether they are wrong to do so, I cannot say. If anything, one could make a decent argument that it is better to die with all your faculties, then give yourself up to a long physical and mental degeneration.
It's also foolish to think that they are unaware of what they are doing. Just listen to this one quote from Hunter S. Thompson regarding Hemingway. It's almost as though he's describing his own death.
>>7862954
major depression disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I get that it's hard to give a name to something so subjective and vague but I've been diagnosed by a few different psychiatrists.
>>7862843
>implying his choice wasnt virtuous
>implying his choice didnt make him a better man
>implying he was destroying himself when he was actually saving his character
>you werent implying any of these things but I wanted to stroke myself to Socrates for a minute
>>7862944
I like youe heuristic approach, I dont like sleeping most of the time if I can help it.
You may like this excerpt from Nietzsche about the "spirit of gravity"
http://genius.com/Friedrich-nietzsche-the-vision-and-the-enigma-xlvi-annotated
>>7862985
2/2
> Hemingway was not a political man. He did not care for movements, but dealt in his fiction with the stresses and strains on individuals in a world that seemed far less complex, prior to World War II, then it has since. Rightly or wrongly, his taste ran to large and simple (but not easy) concepts - to blacks and whites, as it were, and he was not comfortable with the multitude of grey shadings that seem to be the wave of the future.
> It was not Hemingway's wave, and in the end he came back to Ketchum, never ceasing to wonder, says Mason, why he hadn't been killed years earlier in the midst of violent action on some other part of the globe...
> The strength of his youth became rigidity as he grew older, and his last book was about Paris in the twenties.
> Perhaps he found what he came here for, but the odds are huge that he didn't. He was an old, sick and very troubled man, and the illusion of peace and contentment was not enough for him - not even when his friends came up from Cuba and played bullfight with him in the Tram. So finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun.
Pizarnik ended her life on September 25, 1972 by taking an overdose of Secobarbital sodium at the age of 36.
>>7862304
>>commits suicide, considered the only unforgivable sin in judaism and the only thing which completely forfeits your place in the World to Come
I was raised Jewish and I've never heard this.
>>7862987
That's the thing i don't understand. Do you have legitimate chemical imbalances, or are you just really sad because of some personality flaw or weakness?
On the topic of suicide. Its just a sooner end to experience in my opinion - we might know some things about reality, but in the end, we are just in a mystical confusion about many things. You are born, you die, nothing happened. We cant wrap our minds over the concept of not experiencing anything, we simply do not have the biology to do this feat which itself is impossible, considering the presumed state of reality.
TLDR: If you have good enough reason, suicide is an option.
posting underrated suicide girl,
qt Unica Zürn
>>7863023
Inherent chemical imbalances that perpetuate sadness, personality flaws and weakness which in return cause more chemical imbalances ect.
Serious long term clinical depression (involving severe stress) is pretty serious. There have been MRI study scans showing association between that and damage to the hippocampus, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex. Unclear whether it's completely reversible.
>>7863077
>Inherent chemical imbalances that perpetuate sadness, personality flaws and weakness which in return cause more chemical imbalances ect.
you are sad because you choose to see that it is worth it to cling to what you think and feel, that there is a relevance in what you think and feel, towards whatever goals you have. You even cling to some mechanical story to externalise your sadness.
Do not hesitate to see whether you are sad only because you want to be sad and that stopping your wish to be sad does indeed stop your sadness.
>>7862804
>The Philosophy of Redemption
oh boy
>>7863077
I don't want your life story, but; what are you doing here? I assume someone is supporting your lifestyle, since all you do is sleep and probably browse the internet all day? And you can not overcome these ailments?
Considering everything i said before, if i was you i would get my hands on some mind altering drug like DMT or shrooms, as some form of last ditch effort at fixing my brain. Or i'd just kill myself.
>>7860958
nah
>>7863091
If you are not trolling, I'll bite again.
I don't believe that. At least not on a conscious level.
On the second part, what makes you think I haven't put myself out there and tried? I've studied, had a few jobs ect. It's more complicated than what can be articulated via a few short paragraphs,
>>7863115
Inheritance. No support outside of that.
Psychoactive stuff is nice, sometimes not so much. If you were me you wouldn't have the energy to do the latter.
>>7863167
Marina Tsvetayeva. I think she hung herself and her little girl found during WWII.
>>7863603
*found her
>>7862790
The reason is no one here actually reads anything but what's put on intro pictures and she made it on one.
jesus christ this thread makes me feel so bad and i'm already standing on the cliff.
