Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper weaves together two central themes in the analysis of literary suicide: writing and gender. It looks at different interpretations of the suicides of Eleanor Marx, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Sarah Kane. Apart from being writers who committed suicide, these women share a common interest in suicide as a subject matter in their writings. Especially in the cases of Woolf and Plath, their iconic status has often blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in the studies of their life and work. They have become case studies in the fields of psychology/psychiatry that discuss creativity in relation to mental illness. I take into account the connotations of literary suicide in different fields of study and synthesize an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on gender. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and Katrina Jaworski’s adaptation of it to suicide, I explore the phenomenon as a social and historical construct. The study traces identity formation through textual analysis (including fiction, biographies and print media) and considers notes, newspaper reports, obituaries, and letters as the first narrative constructions of suicidal identity. Initial reactions to these cases show a highly gendered understanding. However, the multiple narratives that follow reflect changes in the discourses. The paper analyses the narratives of suicide written by the authors in relation to dominant discourses of suicide, the self and gender. The examination of the writers’ own work demonstrates that Marx, Woolf, Plath and Kane were in most cases writing against the dominant discourses of suicide.