The Literature of Suicide

[3113]

Yes, I know suicide is a serious subject, and I appreciate that this topic might be too close for comfort for some. However, if it's not too sensitive a topic, I'd like to discuss how it turns up in stories as a "literary" devise.

As a writer, I know that the preferences of a character inform the reader about them--whether they dress up or dress down, whether they're neat or sloppy, whether they collect baseball cards or teapots. Methods of suicide would be included in this. How a character decides to attempt suicide, whether or not they succeed, should tell the reader something about them. Essentially, what I'm asking is, when you read or write about a character taking down pills as a suicide method, what does that make you think about them? Does such a method, for example, instantly make the character seem weak and sad? What if they injected the drugs rather than swallowed them? Likewise, if the the character puts a gun to their head or in their mouth (whether they succeed or not), do they come across as bold, no matter how weak they've been presented up to that point? What about jumping? Hanging? Drowning (does Ophelia seem more a mad woman because she gave herself over to water?)?

Obviously, we writers try to match method to character psychology; we know from real life that a person who swallows down pills in their bedroom may want to be found and saved, while one who goes to some isolated spot and puts a gun to their head really wants to die. There is, however, also a literary factor to it. We might pick a method as much for drama or plot or tone as to match character's psychology.

I'm not trying to be funny here...though feel free to go for gallows humor. But I'd really like to know how methods of suicide reflect on character and story; which ones you've seen that really work (like, perhaps, Ophelia's drowning), and which ones didn't work--that weren't the right choice given character/story.

 

[john-the-author]

I think there's also the shock value of it as well: finding someone dead from an intentional overdose is quite horrible, but finding someone who's shot or hanged themselves would seem to be far more gruesome. For example, a woman my wife knew who was the mother of one of her Girl Scouts had her husband shoot himself some years ago. Cleaning up the mess was an unpleasant part of it all. Her friends came in and completely stripped and totally repainted the room.

On the subject of gallows humor, let me mention this joke from Willie Nelson's rather autobiographical book, The Tao of Willie. (He does a great job of talking about his vision of the Tao; I recommend it to everyone who even vaguely likes Willie Nelson.)

A man goes to a library and asks the librarian for books on suicide. The librarian points him in the direction of a shelf. A few minutes later, the man returns and says to the librarian "There are only two books on suicide on that shelf."

The librarian sighs and says "Yeah, they never bring 'em back."

 

[impressive]

Essentially, what I'm asking is, when you read or write about a character taking down pills as a suicide method, what does that make you think about them? Does such a method, for example, instantly make the character seem weak and sad? What if they injected the drugs rather than swallowed them? Likewise, if the the character puts a gun to their head or in their mouth (whether they succeed or not), do they come across as bold, no matter how weak they've been presented up to that point? What about jumping? Hanging? Drowning (does Ophelia seem more a mad woman because she gave herself over to water?)?

It really all depends, for me, not so much on the method, but on the setting. Does a character take a bottle of pills, then call his/her best friend crying? Write a note? Or does s/he crawl off somewhere alone where s/he won't be found for a while?

No one method seems more "serious" than another in that they can all result in death. However, the set up is very telling about the character, as in: Do they WANT to be found/rescued? Are they crying out for attention/understanding? Or do they really just want to GO?

 

[starrkers]

On a purely technical level, it would depend largely on the sex of the suicide taker. It is a general truth (and, as in all generalities, there are exceptions) that violent forms of suicide are a more masculine pastime.
Women tend to go for wrist slitting and pill overdoses, whereas men are more likely to look for the firearm or noose.
The automobile is also an interesting choice - high speed and a brick wall or tree are pretty final. I don't know about other parts of the world, but in Australia there is a growing belief that about a third of all fatal single vehicle accidents (and some where sedans go under heavy vehicles) are suicides.
I would think the US would have similar statistics, being as car mad as we are.

Choosing a "female" style suicide for a male would certainly have connotations of weakness. And the reverse could also apply.

 

[rgraham666]

Having at one point in my life been hanging from my own belt at one point in my life I don't think character comes into the choice of method much.

In my mind when I was at that point, the choice wasn't whether I died. I regarded my death as inevitable at that point. The choice was how quick and painless my death would be. I could die in a few minutes, quietly, warm and dry indoors. Or I could die in one of the myriad horrible ways a homeless person can die on a Canadian night in February.

The former seemed preferable. And my belt was handy.

There wasn't much left of my character I'm afraid, wasn't much left of me.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

3113

I worked at a psych hospital for several years. Suicides were a routine part of the work. Lots of people cannot deal with the stress suicides produce. It's too frightening for others.

I've seen 100s of women cut their wrists but they never do it correctly and they never die. Few require more than basic first aid.

Lots of men called, drunk, threatening to shoot themselves.

One man called me after eating a bottle of pills. He passed-out on the phone. He lived far away. They couldnt trace his call, but we found him. My guess was he was a recent admission, lived in another county, and had prescriptions. That narrowed it down a lot. We called his number, it was busy. Then we called the sheriff in his county, to check on him. When the deputy arrived he turned on his siren for an instant. Right address! I heard it on the phone. He lived.

Guys use pills alot, too, to kill themselves. One man hanged himself.

I knew a drunk who castrated himself with his fingernails.

But the BIG thing with suicides is the effect it has on close friends and family. If you include a suicide in a story, make sure the partner and significant others go apeshit in different ways.

 

[TxRad]

Funny you should bring this up. I just posted a story ("Eugene") in which the main character is about to commit suicide.

I was trying for a character that was beaten, at the end of his rope or in this case a stolen gun. Then it takes a twist. From the scores I didn't do a very good job but from the comments, everyone has liked it. I think the lack of sex and the wrong category have more to do with the score.

Most of my stories are happy and upbeat but ever so often I have to do a dark one to balance things out. Eugene was a dark character that developed but had no home.


Rob

 

[cantdog]

On a purely technical level, it would depend largely on the sex of the suicide taker. It is a general truth (and, as in all generalities, there are exceptions) that violent forms of suicide are a more masculine pastime.
Women tend to go for wrist slitting and pill overdoses, whereas men are more likely to look for the firearm or noose.
The automobile is also an interesting choice - high speed and a brick wall or tree are pretty final. I don't know about other parts of the world, but in Australia there is a growing belief that about a third of all fatal single vehicle accidents (and some where sedans go under heavy vehicles) are suicides.
I would think the US would have similar statistics, being as car mad as we are.

Choosing a "female" style suicide for a male would certainly have connotations of weakness. And the reverse could also apply.

These are urban generalities. Rural people live in a different milieu, and this is more pronounced the older a person is. Someone who grew up half a century ago might certainly be less likely to have pills around anyhow and be more accustomed to guns and other potentially lethal implements. Poisons themselves might be, to her, rather a different class of chemicals than the modern urban pill-dependent depressive would first think of. Doesn't make her bolder, just a product of her environment.

 

[trysail]

The Savage God by A. Alvarez is a book written on the subject by a well-known author. Then, of course, there's ol' Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

 

[Recidiva]

There are so many flavors and methods to suicide.

There's the attention getter and the drama queen, neither of which get much sympathy from me. 40 page suicide notes written in blood with engraved invitations and acid spew and bile from the grave, resulting in a huge "fuck you, I'm dead because you made me cry."

Then there are the negligent suicides, people who are simply near death all the time because of reckless habits - smoking in bed, drinking while driving, habitual drug use resulting in overdose.

The "Final Exit" reader who has researched every possible way and attempted to minimize the risks of failure and harm to self or others in the process.

Then there are those who run out of gas or energy and are unable to continue. It isn't so much a choice for them as a reflex.

Suicide can be reasoned, it can be the right action to take in some situations. It can be wasteful and selfish and destructive.

Sylvia Plath writes very well about that reflexive state where death is just the thing to do, the most attractive option.

 

[trysail]

Résumé
Razors pain you, Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give,
Gas smells awful. You might as well live.

-Dorothy Parker

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Dorothy Parker should know!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Suicide can be a terrific complication or resolution in a story. Steinbeck used a suicide to resolve a story in THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT.

 

[NoJo]

A brilliant movie not to be seen if you're a suicidal writer:

Le Feu Follet

It goes to the heart of the male creative urge.

 

[trysail]

Under the Elms by H.L. Mencken

[From the Trenton, N.J., Sunday Times, April 3, 1927. Early in 1927 several suicides were reported from college campuses, and the newspapers played them up in a melodramatic manner and tried to show that there was an epidemic. In this they were supported by various alarmed pedagogues, one of whom, Dr. John Martin Thomas, president of Rutgers, told the Times that the cause was “too much Mencken.” The Times asked me to comment on this, and I sent in the following. Thomas, a Presbyterian pastor turned pedagogue, was president of Rutgers from 1925 to 1930. He resigned to enter the insurance business.]


I see nothing mysterious about these suicides. The impulse to self- destruction is a natural accompaniment of the educational process. Every intelligent student, at some time or other during his college career, decides gloomily that it would be more sensible to die than to go on living. I was myself spared the intellectual humiliations of a college education, but during my late teens, with the enlightening gradually dawning within me, I more than once concluded that death was preferable to life. At that age the sense of humor is in a low state. Later on, by the mysterious working of God’s providence, it usually recovers.

What keeps a reflective and skeptical man alive? In large part, I suspect, it is this sense of humor. But in addition there is curiosity. Human existence is always irrational and often painful, but in the last analysis it remains interesting. One wants to know what is going to happen tomorrow. Will the lady in the mauve frock be more amiable than she is today? Such questions keep human beings alive. If the future were known, every intelligent man would kill himself at once, and the Republic would be peopled wholly by morons. Perhaps we are really moving toward that consummation now.

I hope no one will be upset and alarmed by the fact that various bishops, college presidents, Rotary lecturers and other such professional damned fools are breaking into print with high-falutin discussions of the alleged wave of student suicides. Such men, it must be manifest, seldom deal with realities. Their whole lives are devoted to inventing bugaboos, and then laying them. Like the news editors, they will tire of this bogus wave after a while, and go yelling after some other phantasm. Meanwhile, the world will go staggering on. Their notions are never to be taken seriously. Their one visible function on earth is to stand as living proofs that education is by no means synonymous with intelligence.

What I’d like to see, if it could be arranged, would be a wave of suicides among college presidents. I’d be delighted to supply the pistols, knives, ropes, poisons and other necessary tools. Going further, I’d be delighted to load the pistols, hone the knives, and tie the hangman’s knots. A college student, leaping uninvited into the arms of God, pleases only himself. But a college president, doing the same thing, would give keen and permanent joy to great multitudes of persons. I drop the idea, and pass on.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Under the Elms by H.L. Mencken

A classic, it brings to mind this more direct consideration of the subject, written a little earlier:



On Suicide

H.L. Mencken

From The Human Mind, Prejudices: Sixth Series, 1927
First printed in The Baltimore Evening Sun, Aug. 9, 1926


The suicide rate, so I am told by an intelligent mortician, is going up. It is good news to his profession, which has been badly used of late by the progress of medical science, and scarcely less so by the rise of cut-throat, go-getting competition within its own ranks. It is also good news to those romantic optimists who like to believe that the human race is capable of rational acts. What could be more logical than suicide? What could be more preposterous than keeping alive? Yet nearly all of us cling to life with desperate devotion, even when the length of it remaining is palpably slight, and filled with agony. Half the time of all medical men is wasted keeping life in human wrecks who have no more intelligible reason for hanging on than a cow has for giving milk.

In part, no doubt, this absurd frenzy has its springs in the human imagination, or, as it is more poetically called, the human reason. Man, having acquired the high faculty of visualizing death, visualizes it as something painful and dreadful. It is, of course, seldom anything of the sort. The proceedings anterior to it are sometimes (though surely not always) painful, but death itself appears to be devoid of sensation, either psychic or physical. The candidate, facing it at last, simply loses his faculties. It is no more to him than it is to a coccus. The dreadful, like the painful, is not in it. It is far more likely to show elements of the grotesque. I speak here, of course, of natural death. Suicide is plainly more unpleasant, if only because there is some uncertainty about it. The candidate hesitates to shoot himself because he fears, with some show of reason, that he may fail to kill himself, and only hurt himself. Moreover, this shooting, along with most of the other more common aids to an artificial exitus, involves a kind of affront to his dignity: it is apt to make a mess. But that objection, it seems to me, is one that is bound to disappear with the progress of science. Safe, sure, easy and sanitary methods of departing this life will be invented. Some, in truth, are already known, and perhaps the fact explains the increase in suicides, so satisfactory to my mortician friend.

I pass over the theological objections to self-destruction as too sophistical to be worth a serious answer. From the earliest days Christianity has depicted life on this earth as so sad and vain that its value is indistinguishable from that of a damn. Then why cling to it? Simply because its vanity and unpleasantness are parts of the will of a Creator whose love for His creatures takes the form of torturing them. If they revolt in this world they will be tortured a million times worse in the next. I present the argument as a typical specimen of theological reasoning, and proceed to more engaging themes. Specifically, to my original thesis: that it is difficult, if not impossible, to discover any evidential or logical reason, not instantly observed to be full of fallacy, for keeping alive. The universal wisdom of the world long ago concluded that life is mainly a curse. Turn to the proverbial philosophy of any race, and you will find it full of a sense of the futility of the mundane struggle. Anticipation is better than realization. Disappointment is the lot of man. We are born in pain and die in sorrow. The lucky man died a' Wednesday. He giveth His beloved sleep. I could run the list to pages. If you disdain folk-wisdom, secular or sacred, then turn to the works of William Shakespeare. They drip with such pessimism from end to end. If there is any general idea in them, it is the idea that human existence is a painful futility. Out, out, brief candle!

Yet we cling to it in a muddled physiological sort of way — or, perhaps more accurately, in a pathological way — and even try to fill it with gaudy hocus-pocus. All men who, in any true sense, are sentient strive mightily for distinction and power, i.e., for the respect and envy of their fellowmen, i.e., for the ill-natured admiration of an endless series of miserable and ridiculous bags of rapidly disintegrating amino acids. Why? If I knew, I'd certainly not be writing books in this infernal American climate; I'd be sitting in state in a hall of crystal and gold, and people would be paying $10 a head to gape at me through peep-holes. But though the central mystery remains, it is possible, perhaps, to investigate the superficial symptoms to some profit. I offer myself as a laboratory animal. Why have I worked so hard for years and years, deperately striving to accomplish something that remains impenetrable to me to this day? Is it because I desire money? Bosh! I can't recall ever desiring it for an instant: I have always found it easy to get all I wanted. Is it, then, notoriety that I am after? Again the answer must be no. The attention of strangers is unpleasant to me, and I avoid it as much as possible. Then is it a yearning to Do Good that moves me? Bosh and blah! If I am convinced of anything, it is that Doing Good is in bad taste.

Once I ventured the guess that men worked in response to a vague inner urge for self-expression. But that was probably a shaky theory, for some men who work the hardest have nothing to express. A hypothesis with rather more plausibility in it now suggests itself. It is that men work simply in order to escape the depressing agony of contemplating life — that their work, like their play, is a mumbo-jumbo that serves them by permitting them to escape from reality. Both work and play, ordinarily, are illusions. Neither serves any solid and permanent purpose. But life, stripped of such illusions, instantly becomes unbearable. Man cannot sit still, contemplating his destiny in this world, without going frantic. So he invents ways to take his mind off the horror. He works. He plays. He accumulates the preposterous nothing called property. He strives for the coy eye-wink called fame. He founds a family, and spreads his curse over others. All the while the thing that moves him is simply the yearning to lose himself, to forget himself, to escape the tragi-comedy that is himself. Life, fundamentally, is not worth living. So he confects artificialities to make it so. So he erects a gaudy structure to conceal the fact that it is not so.

Perhaps my talk of agonies and tragi-comedies may be a bit misleading. The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense. What is ahead for the race? Even theologians can see nothing but a gray emptiness, with a burst of irrational fireworks at the end. But there is such a thing as human progress. True. It is the progress that a felon makes from the watch-house to the jail, and from the jail to the death-house. Every generation faces the same intolerable boredom.

I speak as one who has had what must be regarded, speaking statistically, as a happy life. I work a great deal, but working is more agreeable to me than anything else I can imagine. I am conscious of no vast, overwhelming and unattainable desires. I want nothing that I can't get. But it remains my conclusion, at the gate of senility, that the whole thing is a grandiose futility, and not even amusing. The end is always a vanity, and usually a sordid one, without any noble touch of the pathetic. The means remain. In them lies the secret of what is called contentment, i.e., the capacity to postpone suicide for at least another day. They are themselves without meaning, but at all events they offer a way of escape from the paralyzing reality. The central aim of life is to simulate extinction. We have been yelling up the wrong rain-spout.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

3, this is a serious response -

I find the idea of finding a suicide victim rather uninteresting. However, the idea of following a person comtemplating and commiting suicide really rather engaging. That's what I did in Julia.

It's a nice exercise to think about what goes through the mind of a suicide. Why he/she came to the point of suicide. And so on.

I do not believe that the aftermath is all that interesting - what happens to the family, how they react, etc.

 

[Byron In Exile]

As a writer, I know that the preferences of a character inform the reader about them--whether they dress up or dress down, whether they're neat or sloppy, whether they collect baseball cards or teapots. Methods of suicide would be included in this. How a character decides to attempt suicide, whether or not they succeed, should tell the reader something about them. Essentially, what I'm asking is, when you read or write about a character taking down pills as a suicide method, what does that make you think about them? Does such a method, for example, instantly make the character seem weak and sad? What if they injected the drugs rather than swallowed them? Likewise, if the the character puts a gun to their head or in their mouth (whether they succeed or not), do they come across as bold, no matter how weak they've been presented up to that point? What about jumping? Hanging? Drowning (does Ophelia seem more a mad woman because she gave herself over to water?)?

Obviously, we writers try to match method to character psychology; we know from real life that a person who swallows down pills in their bedroom may want to be found and saved, while one who goes to some isolated spot and puts a gun to their head really wants to die. There is, however, also a literary factor to it. We might pick a method as much for drama or plot or tone as to match character's psychology.

I'm not trying to be funny here...though feel free to go for gallows humor. But I'd really like to know how methods of suicide reflect on character and story; which ones you've seen that really work (like, perhaps, Ophelia's drowning), and which ones didn't work--that weren't the right choice given character/story.

Modes of suicide have little to do with character "preferences," like "neat or sloppy," etc. The suicide scene is a secondary consideration for one who is leaving the world altogether.

Nobody wants to leave in a subjectively awful way. Men tend to opt for guns as the quickest method, therefore it might be painful but brief, women tend to prefer pills as the least painful way. But there is plenty of crossover.

Slow hanging seems to be the generally preferred compromise, most certain, and the least pain involved. Other methods have a high failure rate, and can result in a vegetative state for the candidate, worse than success, and of course worse than no attempt at all.

The majority of suicide attempts are actually suicide gestures, which are not meant to succeed, but to attract attention to a problem the person wants to be solved, but can't figure out how to solve by themselves.

These things need to be considered, lest one's character come off as superficial. If using a gun, and the character pulls the trigger, the character appears completely serious. With pills, there is really no way to know if the character is serious or making a gesture in hopes of being rescued.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I've thought about this question, 3. What mechanism does the suicide chose?

I suspect there are two answers to that question.

The first is the Ernest Hemmingway answer. He saw himself as a rough and tumble man of the world. He seems to have deeply contemplated the idea over some period of time and chose to die by gunshot.

The second is more likely the comman answer. Whatever is at hand. You jump off a bridge because you are there. You poison yourself with sleeping pills because they are there. You slash your wrists because the razor is there at the moment.

My question to you is, do they really shit their pants when they die, like Eric Cartman claims?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JENNY JACKSON

Depends on where things are in the digestive tract.

People dont generally puke when they die, if their stomachs are full. But there will be seepage from the anus if the colon is full.

 

[3113]

Modes of suicide have little to do with character "preferences," like "neat or sloppy," etc. The suicide scene is a secondary consideration for one who is leaving the world altogether.

The suicide scene is a secondary consideration *FOR SOME* but not for others, I assure you. In the real world, there are people who contemplate how their bodies will be found. They *want* to be found laid out all beautiful and innocent (or horrible and shocking), and they'll say as much if they either don't succeed or sometimes in their suicide notes. That they wanted to shock or induce sadness or remorse in the person who found them. It was something they considered.

So you're wrong with that blanket statement.

That said, I think I wrote my question up the wrong way, as almost no one is discussing storytelling. It doesn't matter if we're in a character's head when they suicide or see it from the perspective of an eyewitness or come across the aftermath and a suicide note. What matters is what the METHOD says to the reader. In real life, finding someone has died is just a horrible shock and we don't contemplate the method, but that's not true in stories. In storytelling, the method of death can send a message. Doesn't have to, but it can. The sinking of Ophelia into the water reflects her sinking into madness and despair, drowning under all the woes and weight of this situation; her clothing dragging her down can be seen as a metaphor for how everyone in the play drags her down, etc. I could go on and on about the literary merits of Shakespeare's choice of drowning for Ophelia's death, like the way it transforms her into a siren, singing till the end. And maybe I should have just labeled this thread "literary deaths" because that's what I'm talking about: how the method of death suits the story/character (or not) and offers further layers of meaning.

The reason I picked suicide above, say, getting hit by a bus in a crosswalk, is because suicide, like murder, is among the most dramatic of deaths--a death that is intentional and can run the gamut from a teenager who changes their mind about dying even as they know it's too late, to someone trying to grab a jumper and failing--watching them fall--to a man putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger; hence, it can present a powerful "scene." Like the very powerful and lyrical scene of Ophelia's suicide. This is what we writers try to create, and why we rarely pick a method of suicide at random.

Verisimilitude is all very interesting and, of course, needs to be taken into account--the gun for the guys and pills for the girls, etc. But it's NOT relevant to what I'm asking here. As writers, we usually pick the method of suicide for a reason. To fit the character, to be real...but also to say something.

So, I'll try again: how do you WRITERS view methods of suicide as literary messages? Madame Bovary swallows arsenic, Anna Karenina throws herself in front of a train, young Werther shoots himself...what messages do these choices of suicide give the reader? What does a person hanging themselves or found hanging tell a reader about a character, and how does it differ from the message given by a character who throws themselves off a building?

Step back from real suicide for a moment, and talk about this as writers and readers. I ask again: if a character takes pills, will they come across as weak. If they shoot themselves, will they come across a bold? What does the method say?

 

[rgraham666]

Suicide in literature evokes little but pity and sadness in me. Having been there I have some idea of the mental state of the character. It's as close to Hell as a person can experience this side of death.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I recall reading about a community that lived below a suicide bridge and what an interesting location that would be for a detective novel ...

 

[3113]

I recall reading about a community that lived below a suicide bridge and what an interesting location that would be for a detective novel ...

Zack! Fascinating article! Thanks for the link.

 

[bluebell]

Suicide in literature...I'm inclined to think of it as the sort of thing which, if done properly, the reader is not even aware of it. Does that make sense?
Have you ever been so caught up in a book that even as you have guesses about what might happen, it still washes over you and flows from point to point almost seamlessly?
That's sort of how I see good writing- the actions, reactions and dialogue are streamlined into the story and character so that while they're being read, they make utter sense and you're not even always aware of them.
Sometimes you're not even aware that the writing was so effective until you've finished the book. And that's where the test comes.
I'll know I've read something amazing when I think back on it as more of an arc, and the more I dissect it, the more awed I become over the tight details or the expressions used. On the other hand, I'm not sure writing was quite as successful (in my eyes) if, when I revisit it in my mind, I think of the plot as a bunch of blundering blocks of space-filler; undeniable "palpable designs" as Keats called them.

I guess what I'm saying is that the suicide can be whatever it needs to be, but I think the most successful written renderings come when it reads as a natural action, so to speak. Obviously the bent of most literary suicides is to utterly change the landscape of the story or to be that unexpected shock, but even in those confines I think it's possible to use them and then shade very delicately around them, like you were sketching a picture.

The most fascinating, captivating story I ever read with suicide in it was Gail Godwin's The Sorrowful Woman, and I would HIGHLY recommend both her and this story. I just pulled out the book of short stories it's published in (Dream Children), and fanned through the pages- I haven't done it in awhile- and even now I'm blown away by the language she uses.
It's gorgeous and by the end of it the suicide is so natural, so completely sensical for that character, and so beautifully written that you almost think of suicide fondly. Which is kind of a mind-fuck, and is exactly what I'm saying when I talk about post-reading thoughts.

It starts out like this:

One winter evening she looked at them: the husband durable, receptive, gentle; the child a tender golden three. The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again.

Throughout the story, she becomes more and more unable to be a mother- to care for her family; she closes herself in a bedroom and all she wants to do is sleep. Her husband brings her a sleeping draught every night.
It's so innocuous, this "draught", you know it's there and she lives the day for it, but it's not until the end that you really understand how important the wording was.
Godwin never mentions anything so graphic as chugging pills and chasing them with alcohol, or blood, or knives, or dark depressions. Obviously this woman had a problem with all of the depressive symptoms and suicidal leanings, but the story was written so dreamily and prettily, you would have to pull your brain out and think "Oh, yeah."

The suicide reads this way:

Finally, in the nick of time, it was finished one late afternoon. Her veins pumped and her forehead sparkled. She went to the kitchen cupboard, took what was hers, closed herself into the little white room, and brushed her hair for awhile.
The man and boy came home and found: five loaves of warm bread, a roast stuffed turkey, a glazed ham, three pies of different fillings, eight molds of the boy's favorite custard, two weeks' supply of fresh-laundered sheets and shirts and towels, two hand-knitted sweaters (both of the same gray color), a sheath of marvelous watercolor beasts accompanied by mad and fanciful stories nobody could ever make up again, and a tablet full of love sonnets addressed to the man. The house was redolent of renewal and spring. The man ran to the little room, could not contain himself to knock, flung back the door.
"Look, Mommy is sleeping," said the boy. "She's tired from doing all our things again." He dawdled in a stream of the last sun for that day and watched his father tenderly roll back her eyelids, lay his ear softly to her breast, test the delicate bones of her wrist. The father put down his face into her fresh-washed hair.
"Can we have the turkey for supper?" the boy asked.

I think the method, like the literary device of the suicide itself, should be a seamless extension of that character. It should make sense for that person to have ended his/herself in that way, and in doing such, it would translate as whatever you want the last word to be on that character.
Maybe they started out as a bad person but then the suicide, though twisted, was their way of absolving something- perhaps the way it was carried out could even be seen as poetic irony. Or some other scenario.

Obviously suicide is an undeniably delicate and painful matter for all in real life, as Rob pointed out ( ), and sometimes things like that are just too hard to read about.

From a purely literary perspective I say it can be whatever you need it to be. The point of a suicide is usually to be very dramatic and to call attention to something important. But I also think we get very concrete ideas in our heads about how things happen and how they should happen, as based on real life. There are always more possibilities to flip and play with, though I do not say that to sound callous.