Teenage Suicide
What can be done to identify and help potential victims?
By Richard L. Worsnop

A death in the family is always devastating, even if extreme old age or terminal illness is the cause. But the shock of bereavement is infinitely greater when a teenage family member commits suicide. Relatives are left to cope as best they can with feelings of grief and guilt. Once unusual, teenage suicide has become increasingly common in recent decades. Suicide now ranks as the third leading cause. . . .

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Literary References

“… And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head. “

—Edward Arlington Robinson, “Richard Cory”

In literature as in life, suicide inspires feelings of sorrow, awe and pity. Dante's thoughts on the subject, as expressed in the Inferno, reflect Christian doctrine of the early 14th century. As Virgil conducts Dante through the various regions of hell, they find that suicides occupy the fiery seventh circle, along with murderers, blasphemers and perverts.

In his tragedies, Shakespeare employed suicide as a dramatic device again and again. The Bard of Avon's roster of self-inflicted deaths includes the title characters in Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra; Cassius and Brutus in Julius Caesar, Goneril in King Lear, Ophelia in Hamlet; Othello; and Lady Macbeth. Unlike Dante, Shakespeare was non-judgmental. A. Alvarez observed that Othello's suicide “weighs not at all” for Shakespeare; “what matters is its tragic inevitability and the degree to which it heightens his heroic stature. Instead of damning him, [Othello's] suicide confirms his nobility.”

The literary treatment of suicide underwent another change with the publication in 1774 of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. The book was written after the author's unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and seems to have helped him regain his emotional equilibrium. But Werther's effect on the reading public was just the opposite. The romantic tale of the doomed young man in the blue tailcoat and yellow waistcoat impelled dozens of young men throughout Europe to commit suicide in emulation.

Two of the finest novels of the 19th century, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, featured heroines who killed themselves. American authors of the 20th century also have explored the subject with sensitivity. They include novels by Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth), William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury), John O'Hara (Appointment in Samarra), and short stories by Willa Gather (“Paul's Case”) and J. D. Salinger (“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”).

Perhaps the most famous suicide in modern literary annals is the young American poet Sylvia Plath. Shortly before her senior year in college, Plath made a serious suicide attempt (with sleeping pills) and was found barely in time to save her life. The attempt, and the events leading to it, found fictional expression in her posthumously published novel, The Bell Jar. Esther Greenwood, the narrator and central character, likens madness to the descent of a stifling bell jar over her head. In this state, she says, “wherever I sat… I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my sour air.” And she adds, “To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.”

In February 1963, Plath again attempted suicide (by gas from her kitchen range), and this time she was successful. The irony is that she probably wanted to be rescued; a note found near her body said, “Please call Dr.—” and gave his phone number. But gas from her apartment had seeped into the bedroom of a neighbor living one floor below, knocking him out. Otherwise, the man might have been able to help save her.

[1] A. Alvarez, The Sarage God: A Study of Suicide (1972), p. 152.

Footnote: 1. A. Alvarez, The Sarage God: A Study of Suicide (1972), p. 152.