Suicide-The Ultimate Rejection

Suicide in history and literature: social and cultural variations.

But see the Madman rage downright
With furious looks, a ghastly sight.
Naked in chains bound doth he lie,
And roard amain, he knows not why.
Observe him: for as in a glass
Thine angry portraiture it was.
His picture keep still in thy presence:
Twixt him and thee there's no difference.

(Robert Burton 1621, The Anatomy of Melancholy)

"Every man is the greatest enemy unto himself." -Robert Burton

To be, or not to be, that is the question:- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings an arrows of outrageous fortune; Or take up arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them?... To die,- to sleep;- To sleep!- Perchance to dream; ay, there's a rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled of this mortal coil....Who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?

(Hamlet III.i)- William Shakespeare

All quotes taken from Colin Pritchard's Suicide- The Ultimate Rejection? A psycho-social study. (1995)

Wuthering Heights

"May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there- not in heaven- not perished- where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer- I repeat it til my tongue stiffens- Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you- haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always- take any form- drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

(rambling monologue of Heathcliff to Ellen Dean) Emily Bronte, p.148 (1847)

Wuthering Heights

"You teach me now how cruel you've been- cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears; they'll blight you- they'll damn you. You loved me-then what right had you to leave me? What right- answer me- for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you- oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?"

(Heathcliff to Catherine Linton) Emily Bronte, p.144 (1847)

Wuthering Heights

"Are you pursued with a devil," he pursued savagely, "to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for you infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?"

"I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won't you come here again? Do!"

(Dialogue between Heathcliff and Catherine Linton) Emily Bronte, p.142 (1847)

Wuthering Heights

"This is nothing," cried she: "I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."

(Catherine Earnshaw to Ellen Dean) Emily Bronte, p.80 (1847)

Matrix Warrior: Being The One

For while a humaton's eyes are fixed outward, upon the petty baubles which the matrix has provided as distraction- looking for love, food, money, fame, and above all social acceptance- the warriors' eyes are turned inward, gazing into the abyss of their non-existence.

And yet, paradoxically, with the certainty that all this will be gone in a heartbeat, they allow their eyes to feast upon the features of the world, not hungrily but gratefully, knowing that all of this, this beautiful illusion (so long as they can remain indifferent to it) is the means to their freedom.

-Jake Horsley, p.57 (2003)

note- a humaton refers to the plugged in people of the matrix (the disillusioned, basically), and in other words, you and I.

Wuthering Heights

"You've a nice house, Joseph," I could not refrain from observing, "and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs!..."

-(Isabella Heathcliff to Joseph) Emily Bronte, p.130 (1847)

Wuthering Heights

Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts: they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an unnatural dream!

-(Isabella Heathcliff to Ellen Dean) Emily Bronte, p. 125 (1847)

Wuthering Heights

"Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?" she said suddenly, after some minutes' reflection.
"Yes, now and then," I answered.
"And so do I. I've dreamt in my life dreams that have strayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one; I'm going to tell it- but take care not to smile at any part of it."

-(Catherine Earnshaw to Ellen Dean) Emily Bronte, p.79 (1847)

Disturbances In The Field

"Dresses don't have all these pockets," I said.
My future looked bleak and sparse.
"No, but you ladies have your pocketbooks. They hold even more."
Pocketbooks were an appendage. Pockets were part of the suit, inseparable.
Well if I couldn't have a suit I would have a man, at least, and I would know what wondrous things were in each of his pockets.

-Lynne Sharon Schwartz, p.23. (1983)