Comments on: Death By Suicide

By: Bruce Robbins

Bruce Robbins — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:28:27 +0000

I was wondering about the same thing after watching Hamlet. The thinker, the procrastinator, the rationalizer…he talks a lot about killing himself, but never does it (“People who talking about committing suicide, never do.”) Although I had a childhood friend who committed suicide after his father died. Of course, Hamlet, was a Christian, as was Shakespeare (although a non-practicing one), believed in Heaven and Hell, and the Ghost, he imagines might have been the Devil, and not the Spirit of his father…How confusing to him!!! Of course, if he committed suicide right away, or killed his Unk right after his father’s ghost to him to revenge his death, “Hamlet” would have been Shakespeare’s SHORTEST play, not his longest, not the absolute masterpiece the world knows.

As mentioned most of the suicides occur in his plays set in pre-Christian times. Honor, fear of being captured by the enemy, loyalty, devotion, madness (Lady Macbeth) seem to be the main motives. “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten their bones, but not for love…”.

Romeo and Juliet? Kids…playing as adults. Romanticized love. Othello…guilt, grief and wrongfully accusing and then murdering the guiltless Desdomona, kills himself, and Iago, as far as we know, gets off scott-free, strange because we all like the bad guy to get his due, especially a ratfink like Iago..

By: Brooks Hochstein

Brooks Hochstein — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:57:00 +0000

Fantastic blog.Really looking forward to read more. Really Cool.

By: amber

amber — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:44:38 +0000

i would really like to know what the difference between suicide back then and now is…

By: Daniell Virgo

Daniell Virgo — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:27:10 +0000

I like your site greatly. Will bookmark. Keep up to marvelous writing on it. ty

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:32:02 +0000

It seems that, often, the tragedy in a suicide is that the character has been destroyed; taking one’s own life is usually the last recourse when one feels he has nothing left, that he’s been left with no reason to live, that he’s suffering a fate worse than death. Murder or death on a battlefield can be seen as noble deaths or mere accidents of fate, but a suicide is always a statement that a character has been laid as low as possible and has run out of options, something that remains true whether Shakespeare agreed with the Romans or not.

By: A.K.Farrar

A.K.Farrar — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:01:16 +0000

We find it hard (well, I don’t) but no indication Shakespeare does. You never know – could have been a warning shot for one of his daughters.
Someone counted 13 suicides – a majority in the pagan Roman plays …it was, after all, ‘the “Roman” way.’

(Wonder if any good ‘Protestant’ characters kill themselves?)

As a percentage of the deaths in the plays, suicide seems pretty low (and nearly always dictated by the source story?).

(And there is ALWAYS a question of where our sympathies are meant to lie – especially with the incomplete Hamlet texts people will insist on using.)

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:51:33 +0000

Ought we be surprised if Shakespeare seems to present an equivocal view of suicide? On the one hand, the deaths of Romeo and Juliet were senseless and unnecessary–but, on the other, it seems impossible to believe that Shakespeare imagined their souls suffereing eternal torment in Hell as the play closes. When Laertes confronts the priest in Hamlet over his sister’s funeral rites, he gets all the good lines, and there is no question where our sympathies are meant to lie. He might have thought suicide a sin, but, given ample opportunity to do so, he never seems to call it a mortal one.