Suicide, Art, and Humor



Millie Niss



The artist has a duty, some might say, to produce art. But with that comes the more fundamental duty to stay alive. The classic poem on despair and the battle against it is Emily Dickinson's statement, one I find rings true as a depression sufferer that,

To fight aloud is very brave But gallanter, I know Who charge within the bosom The cavalry of woe.

Many artists - especially writers and composers - have struggled with depression and suicide and some have succumbed. This is an issue in my own life, and I have tried to not only fight for life, but to turn the fight into art. In my multimedia piece "Suicide" I list reasons to stay alive. From the very first entry "Whenever you want to kill yourself, just think how much your sins hurt Jesus on the Cross," (if you know me at all, and in the piece, you get to know me) you can tell that this list is not meant to actually prevent suicide. Instead, it is a transformation of the issue into a kind of found poetry, found because these reasons are primarily ones actually offered by misguided well-wishers:

Take a bubble bath. You'll feel better... Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Think of all the people in Afghanistan who would give anything just to have your life. How about a nice cup of Sleepytime herbal tea? Just get drunk, you'll forget all about wanting to kill yourself. Smile on the outside and pretty soon you'll be smiling on the inside. Have you tried sex? That should cheer you up. Eat a dozen doughnuts. The sugar will improve your mood. How about caffeine? How about amphetamines? Cocaine cheers me up... I'll introduce you to my dealer. What you need is a little real trouble in your life. Then you would know that this depression thing is a bunch of nonsense.

If you are willing to look at the dark topic of suicide while retaining some sense of humor, you will quickly become aware, reading this list, that I was at least trying to be funny. This mix of humor with depression is common in artists. For example, the comedian Jonathan Winters was extremely, painfully depressed. Another example, and one I draw from although he eventually fell victim to his need to self destruct, is the poet John Berryman. A typical example of humor mixed with despair is from sonnet 107:

I'll get up on the roof of the hall and heave freely. The University of Soft Knocks will headlines in the Times make: Fellow goes mad, crowd panics, rhododendrons injured. Slow will flow the obituaries while the facts get straight, almost straight.

That his humor didn't save him (and that his real death was so similar to the one in this poem) is an argument against the value of art in fighting suicide, but the idea is to stay alive as long as one can and to create as much art as one can - about other things as well as despair. Moreover, human despair is a constant element in life and should be reflected in art, and these damaged artists who have fought it or given into it themselves are our best chance at reflecting that aspect of life in art.

In his sonnets, Berryman also wrote about the desire to have a life, to fight the abyss. For example, sonnet 93 ends with

still I hope Sometime to dine with you, sometime to go Sober to bed, a proper citizen.

And despite his own suicidal urges, Berryman had been the victim of his father's suicide (or murder, as suggested by Paul Mariani in Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman), and he was aware of the rights of others and the damage suicide could do to its survivors. Sonnet 7 is dedicated to this theme, and the argument between the suicidal and the normal points of view:

I've found out why, that day, that suicide From the Empire State falling on someone's car Troubled you so; and why we quarrelled. War, Illness, an accident, I can see (you cried) But not this: What a bastard, not spring wide! . . I said a man, life in his teeth, could care Not much just whom he spat it on. . and far Beyond my laugh we argued either side. 'One has a right not to be fallen on! . .' (Our second meeting. . yellow you were wearing.) Voices of our resistance and desire! Did I divine then I must shortly run Crazy with need to fall on you, despairing? Did you bolt so, before it caught, our fire?

This sonnet poses the essential argument: the suicidal person does not care what damage he or she does, but others "have the right not to be fallen on." Anne Sexton made this point in her poem "Wanting to Die" when she said

But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools? They never ask: why build?

The discussion of the tools, the weapons of suicide is one I have witnessed on the ward, with everyone talking about their favorite method and planning their next attempt.

When an artist commits suicide, the fallen on are not just his or her family and friends but often a wide ring of admirers and critics. That's why the suicide of Sylvia Plath is still debated in the magazines: Did Ted Hughes drive her to it, or was it her own madness? The art of suicide is potentially a way to fight against the fact of it (although many fallen poets prove that it is at best an ineffective tool).

Art is a force that tends towards life, even the art of despair. While you are writing a despairing poem, you are in the act of writing, temporarily suspended from the act of despairing. So, too, for the reader- a despairing reader can be drawn out of the abyss by reading a poem or listening to a symphony that seems to express her exact feelings. And this is ultimately the value of the art of despair: it saves others from despair, even when it cannot save the artist. I have seen several suicidal friends laugh hysterically while viewing my Suicide web site. When I see that, I realize that there has been some value to my depression.

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