why do so many great authors commit suicide?

Answer 1

perhaps the commonly accepted idea that authors are only famous after they're dead. Depends on which authors you speak of. Classic ones of the olden age probably weren't understood or seen as great authors. None of that really answers any questions though

Answer 2

Virginia Woolf is another author who committed suicide. Primo Levi; Jack London too... Depression and genius seem to be linked to suicide. Writers generally being very introspective and introverted people reflect on themselves a lot and by nature are often very passive and pessimistic, perceiving things far more negatively than others. Eventually I presume this builds up and a particular situation may trigger a climax in their lives and lead them to commit suicide.

Answer 3

What great authors do is mine themselves. It is true that they observe the world, but also they hold themselves up to a magnifying glass to a degree that most people do not. Sylvia Plath described her hospitalization (for sever bipolar depression) as a "time of darkness, despair, and disillusion--so black only as the inferno of the human mind can be--symbolic death, and numb shock--then the painful agony of slow rebirth and psychic regeneration."

That is a lot of pain for a person to handle.

Perhaps it is a chicken and egg argument. Are introspective people authors or are people authors because they are introspective?

A percentage of authorial brilliance can be attributed to alternating manic and depressive states; another percentage can be the curse of living in "interesting" times. So either the author's external or the internal terrain is wretched; and the world hungrily and voyeuristically eats it up and demands more.

Answer 4

Or is there something about the nature of the suicidal that makes them better writers?

I'm not being a smart@ss, just throwing it out there

Answer 5

Besides Hemmingway I don't know of any that committed suicide.

Answer 6

To be a Genius and not be understood by others also comes with a slight insanity to ones being.

Answer 7

people get depressed when they reach the top of the mountain they were climbing. which way do they go? if their philosophy isnt a sound one, theyll got straight into the pits. just remember, when your heroes all kill themselves, its time to find a new hero.

Answer 8

cause they are so deep
they stop understanding themselves

hunter s tompson
hemmingway
and on and on

ego is a *****