There are many different reasons for committing suicide, and its forms are countless. Historically, views on suicide have been influenced by broad themes such as religion, the meaning of life, protest, ritual, imitative, and duty. Studies have evaluated fictional depictions of suicide in television, such as the Werther effect.
Actually, one of the darkest moments in the animated television series "The Simpsons" occurs in the first season, episode three: With the loss of his job and struggling, Homer plans to kill himself. He writes a note, says good-bye to his sleeping family, endures a joking neighbor, and plans to hang himself with the aid of a rock.
In an additional story, Homer is Odysseus, the hero of the ancient epic poem the Iliad and Odyssey by the 8th-century B.C. literary Homer.
In fact, some of our current perspectives on suicide draw from antiquity.
The Stoic philosophers, and later, the Romans, believed that it was wrong except under certain circumstances. Many ancient suicidal victims, including mythical Ajax in the Iliad, warrior of Troy and cousin of Achilles, were determined to maintain hero status and avoid bringing shame to family or society by engaging in ritualistic, dutiful self-annihilation.
Countless times over many years, I have been startled in this challenging work. As a surgical, psychiatric, or research house officer, and eventual attending, the telephone and pager on my nightstand, time and again, would alert me to immediate messages that were urgent and often tragic. I would snap to my feet and again pick up the ED routine -- anticipate the crowded "golden" minutes to grasp self-inflicted, life-threatening challenges, consult with colleagues, and mollify anxieties that took families to the edge.
And, yet, this antiseptic, outwardly automatic procedure was complemented by curious feelings of familiarity or "already seen," a conjoint personal sense and an ancient presence that "I have been through it all before, born of a creative muse from long ago. It pulls my mind into a different moment, a better point in time."
That unique point in time occurred when, on a whim, as a third-year medical student and undergraduate classics major, I traveled across the country for a rare lecture on Ajax and the 5th-century B.C. artist Exekias at the Archaeological Institute of America annual meeting. That intensely different and personal moment, the pierced scene of Ajax by Exekias, again emphasized the importance of critical thinking in medicine, empathy, and other generally important skills that strive to connect interpersonal understanding, enjoyment, sharing of tradition, and insufferable anguish.
It is likely that the indelible verbal and visual information learned was forgotten but nevertheless stored in my brain, and similar experiences or triggers evoked the contained knowledge leading to a feeling of familiarity. It is being experienced because it has been experienced.
This is not uniquely my experience. Historic recurrences have been memorialized by many in different forms of representation and applied to events, locations, and stories of beauty and tragedy with striking similarity.
In ancient Greece, mimesis was an idea that governed the creation of works of art as a representation, expression, mimicry, or acts of realism. Oscar Wilde opined in his 1889 essay : "the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy."
Homer's Iliad ends with Ajax and his contingent of Greek warriors alive and well. With the death of Achilles, Ajax, and Odysseus (Roman name Ulysses), the protagonist in Homer's account of the Trojan War, compete to claim Achilles' magical armor. Odysseus, gifted in intelligence and wise counsel, proves to be more eloquent than Ajax, and the armor is awarded to him. Ajax becomes furious and crazed. In his rage he slaughters herds of captured livestock, believing them to be his enemies. Unable to deal with his dual dishonor, the insult and shame, he commits suicide "conquered by his [own] sorrow."
Exekias's honors the hero of his homeland by depicting Ajax preparing for suicide, a unique scene in ancient Greek art for there are no other known active or vigorous images of this event that do so. The artist composes a scene of vulnerability and personal isolation for the hero is nude and squatting, a single palm tree to one side, his suit of armor to the other side. Ajax is bent over his sword which he is placing in the ground. It is here that the art of Exekias translates this dynamic impending death by suicide across space and time.
In my contributions, readers will come to learn that my work as a suicidologist may not appeal to the modern physician, for self-murder is dark, merciless, marvelously cruel, hard to comprehend, and beats individuals and families "into the sword that yields not."
Nevertheless, as difficult as it is, suicidology remains essential work. Exekias' ageless representation may furnish translation from which clinicians and others benefit in that the first shallow exposure to the Suicide of Ajax Vase may, although brief and subsequently degraded, be a facilitator for a second deeper perception.
Art can transform opinions, instill values, and help to engage with others. Art in this sense is saving. It is communication. It can give a voice to the marginalized. It can rally for change.
Or -- "If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson
Russell Copelan, MD (Ret.), lives in Pensacola, Florida. He graduated from Stanford University and UCLA Medical School. He trained in neurosurgery and completed residency and fellowship in emergency department psychiatry. He is a reviewer for Academic Psychiatry and founder of , an originator and distributor of violence assessments.