Hamlet dwells on the matter of suicide quite often, and his famous "soliloquy" (on stage, Ophelia pretends to read a book, and Claudius and Polonius are hiding) poses the question of whether he should commit suicide or not:
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
[...]
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all" (3.1:56-83).
Hamlet thinks that people do not commit suicide because they are cowards and fear what happens after death. I was reminded of this scene while reading Candide. In chapter 12, the old woman, who was the daughter of a Pope, continues to convey her unfortunate life story to Candide and Cunégonde. Near the end of her story, she talks about suicide:
"A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts; is anything more stupid than choosing to carry a burden that really one wants to cast on the ground? to hold existence in horror, and yet to cling to it? to fondle the serpent which devours us till it has eaten out our heart? [...] I have seen a vast number of people who hated their existence; but I never saw more than a dozen who deliberately put an end to their own misery."
Like Hamlet, the old woman says that people are cowards and guesses that this weakness is "one of our worst instincts." The old woman seems to be more acceptive towards suicide than Hamlet.
The matter of suicide is one of the most complex questions of human nature, and I think it will continue as a moral and intellectual challenge for the rest of human existence.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I’d also like to point out that at the end of Hamlet, Horatio claims that he shares something in common with the Romans—he’s willing to commit suicide when he sees that Hamlet is going to die. However, he eventually decides against this action when Hamlet begs him not to.
Voltaire compiled his Philosophical Dictionary, and one of his subjects is Cato and suicide. Although Voltaire brings up that the Church forbids suicide (although we all know that Voltaire wasn’t too fond of the Church), he also toys with the idea that Cato’s suicide was not weakness. He says more than that (here’s the link: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/chapter104.html), but what I’m really concerned about is that all these people (Horatio and the old woman, and Voltaire) seem to romanticize suicide. Now, I know they lived in a different time period, but don’t we see this same notion brought up in society today? The romanticization of suicide and depression? I just think it’s so sad that these characters and Voltaire say that people refuse to kill themselves because of weakness, when really it seems to me that it takes far more strength to keep fighting.
Post a Comment