Suicide in Literature

Memnoch

Hey guys,
I'm doing research for an article and I'm basically looking for examples of suicide in great works of literature/classic novels/ books by famous authors.

I'm looking for books where the suicide is committed by one of the main charecters and the whole motivation etc. of it is explored by the author.

So if anyone knows of any famous books like this, I would be grateful.

Also the more different kinds of suicide the better. Please however, do no post spoilers of the story in this thread.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Amazotheamazing

Do Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet count?

Dorian Gray has two suicides, iirc.

Memnoch

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Do Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet count?

Dorian Gray has two suicides, iirc.

Yes ofc. Thanks a lot!

anna766

The Awakening by Kate Chopin has an ambiguous ending, often interpreted as suicide. Might be a bit vague for your purposes, but it's a great book nonetheless.

John

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath features a suicide but more significantly was published a month prior to Plath's own suicide.

raah!

Best put this in spoiler, as it would kinda ruin the book for people who havne't read it.

Burmese Days-George Orwell

. Basically the whole book gives reasons for the suicide, and says that suicide is common in such cases.

Edit: Not sure if this can be considered 'great', but it certainly has a famous author so maybe it will be of some use.

raah!

There is alot of suicide in Crime and Punishment also. Raskolnikov has the intention of suicide at one stage. And I'm pretty sure that another or maybe two minor characters commit suicide also (or at least attempt to). But It's been nearly 2 years since I read it.

crotalus667

The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides


Not that I have read it (but after reading Middlesex I intend to) there are 5 Suicides in it from the one famaily:eek:

Kaizer Sosa

Try Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. It's a really good book. Suicide is a big theme for Murakami

crotalus667

The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath

She’s a famous poet that killed herself in 60 something this novel is largly auto biographical (I haven’t read but I would assume she dies at the end , the manuscript was found after her death)

Lemon

Try 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt

'The Hours' by Michael Cunningham

'The Fall' by Albert Camus

'The Gathering' by Anne Enright

KyleBovine

Joseph Conrad is an author that deals extensively with suicide.

Lord Jim, Victory, The Secret Agent, Nostromo etc all deal with suicide of main characters.

In his fiction, 25 novels or so (excluding short stories) 15 characters commit suicide or willingly allow themselves to be killed

ilovemarmite

The Virgin Suicides is a brilliant book, it is interesting as it is told from the point of view of a group of boys who knew the girls. Really beautiful prose. It is quite a haunting book in some ways. I must have read it ten times at least.

Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coehlo is really good too.

ZorbaTehZ

Omg people, L2use the spoiler flags! Jeez!

IvyTheTerrible

Anna Karenina starts and ends with similar suicides.

. And it's a bloody brilliant book.

Honey-ec

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. And I refuse to believe that there's anyone in the world who doesn't know how that one ends...

ETA, I'm just after spotting IvyTheTerrible's post...

John

crotalus667 wrote: »

The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath

She’s a famous poet that killed herself in 60 something this novel is largly auto biographical (I haven’t read but I would assume she dies at the end , the manuscript was found after her death)

Not true, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, it was published before her suicide. She published it under a pseudonym as she based most of the characters on real people and didn't want them to know. It was only after her death that it was published under her own name.

Magpie!

The Drowning Tree; and The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

jaffa20

John wrote: »

Not true, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, it was published before her suicide. She published it under a pseudonym as she based most of the characters on real people and didn't want them to know. It was only after her death that it was published under her own name.

Yes and what a brilliant book. The film "Sylvia" is also very good and gynweth palthrow plays the part well.

quickbeam

The Children of Húrin

by J. R. R. Tolkien. Or shorter versions of the story in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. Good story if you're into the Middle-earth world.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. And I refuse to believe that there's anyone in the world who doesn't know how that one ends...

I didn't actually know. But spoilers don't really work in a thread like this as you have uncover spoilers to know which book is being mentioned anyway or else there's no point in opening the thread.

theboytaylor

Waiting Period - Hubert Selby Jr.

Starts off with a guy contemplating suicide and develops from there into a pretty good read.

You can search Amazon by tag (suicide)
but that kind of takes the fun out of the thread doesn't it?

otnomart

Snow by Orhan Pamuk.
Set in Turkey

Aurora Borealis

Veronika decides to die - Paulo Coehlo

BossArky

Les Mis, when the fellow jumps off the bridge.

RetroRainbow

There's a suicide at the start of 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', but it's nothing major to the plot, really.

Honey-ec

BossArky wrote: »

Les Mis, when the fellow jumps off the bridge.

Javert.

I read Les Miserables when I was going through an uber-nerdy phase with the musical. Goood Lord, but it's boring!

sceptre

Honey-ec wrote: »

I read Les Miserables when I was going through an uber-nerdy phase with the musical. Goood Lord, but it's boring!

It really helps if you skip over the 200 odd pages devoted to what life in convents is like and the entire section on argot. I like going off on tangents as much as the next guy but Hugo made a career out of it. Which is ironic as he and his publisher are famed for the briefest correspondence exchange in history - when either Les Mis was published, Hugo wondered how his book was selling. He sent a message to his publisher that just read "?" The reply he got back just read "!". See, short tangents can be semi-amusing, take note Mr Hugo.

spav

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. Basically about a group of people who all have the same idea to jump off the same building at the same time. They all meet, decided not to go through with it at that point, and the book is a 'what happened next' kind of thing. It's OK, not great - typical Hornby really.

I'd echo the poster who suggested Haruki Murakami - most of his books have some kind of suicide theme, even if only implied. I supposed it's an understandable preoccupation for a Japanese post-War author. Norwegian Wood is probably the most accessible and most pertinent place to start.

HalloweenJack

The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy has one of its three main characters committing suicide.

Danny Upshaw kills himself because he's been found out as an undercover cop and he thinks he's been framed for the murder of another cop. He kills himself by slitting his throat open with a kitch blade.

994

The Sorrows of Young Werther was said to have inspired several suicides.

Blush_01

I know she's a very minor character, but

Retty Priddle tries to commit suicide after she realises she'll never have Angel Clare

in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Martin Vanger commits suicide when he drives into a truck after escaping Lisbeth and Mikael in his sex dungeon where he had trapped Mikael,

in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Sorry, very complicated sentence.

Denerick

Honey-ec wrote: »

Javert.

I read Les Miserables when I was going through an uber-nerdy phase with the musical. Goood Lord, but it's boring!

Couldn't disagree more! Well, there was a very dull 200 pages or so around the half way mark, but by and large I loved that book.

godspal

Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert
Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (actually deals with Slyvia Plath's suicide unlike the Bell Jar.)
MacBeth, Julius Caesar and Hamlet all have suicides in them.

sceptre

Denerick wrote: »

Couldn't disagree more! Well, there was a very dull 200 pages or so around the half way mark, but by and large I loved that book.

If you buy a penguin version they usually shove those two sections to the back and pretend that Hugo didn't go off on one half-way through.

MonicaBing

Beach Music by Pat Conroy, amazing book, starts with the line, " The dark subconscious of her mind, sounded the death knell for her time on earth"....Deals with the main character coming to grips with the death/suicide of his childhood sweetheart, which intriguingly connects with her parents time spent in World War 2 Germany.
This book evoked such emotions for me, ive yet to come across another book like it.

LostinKildare

Jude the Obscure
Sophie's Choice
Patriotism (Mishima)
Mrs. Dalloway
The House of Mirth

sfmonet

Anna Karenina - by Leo Tolstoy
Eustacia in The Return of the Native - by Thomas Hardy