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Sazerac · 06-14-2002, 01:50 PM

Marsha Norman wrote a play back in 1983 called "'Night, Mother" about an epileptic girl planning to commit suicide and her mother's attempts to stop her from doing so. The young woman, Jessie (played by Sissy Spacek in the film version in 1989) tries to explain to her mom at a couple of key points just why is she trying to kill herself:

"Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus and it's hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy, and more than anything in the world you want to get off, and the only reason in the world you don't get off is it's still fifty blocks from where you're going? Well, I can get off right now if I want to, because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it's the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. As soon as I've had enough, it's my stop.

I've had enough."

And then a little later on in the play, when her mom is begging, pleading to know what it is she could have done to change things for Jessie:

"No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Turn it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to. It's all I really have that belongs to me and I'm going to say what happens to it. And it's going to stop. And I'm going to stop it."

The point is that Jessie feels that the only thing she has control over in her life is its termination. Many suicides may feel the same way; that their lives are so out of control that the only thing that they have power over is to end their life.

I cannot say one way or another. I know suicide is not the path for me, but neither can I condemn it in another. I do not believe people are weak for committing suicide. All I know is that it the most personal decision anyone can make, and I can only pray that they will have the ability to choose the right decision for themselves. I always believe that to live is the stronger alternative, but I know my reality is not the same as others'.

-Sazerac

06-14-2002, 01:50 PM	#49
Sazerac Ironworks Moderator Join Date: January 7, 2001 Location: Monroe, LA Age: 61 Posts: 7,387	Marsha Norman wrote a play back in 1983 called "'Night, Mother" about an epileptic girl planning to commit suicide and her mother's attempts to stop her from doing so. The young woman, Jessie (played by Sissy Spacek in the film version in 1989) tries to explain to her mom at a couple of key points just why is she trying to kill herself: "Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus and it's hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy, and more than anything in the world you want to get off, and the only reason in the world you don't get off is it's still fifty blocks from where you're going? Well, I can get off right now if I want to, because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it's the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. As soon as I've had enough, it's my stop. I've had enough." And then a little later on in the play, when her mom is begging, pleading to know what it is she could have done to change things for Jessie: "No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Turn it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to. It's all I really have that belongs to me and I'm going to say what happens to it. And it's going to stop. And I'm going to stop it." The point is that Jessie feels that the only thing she has control over in her life is its termination. Many suicides may feel the same way; that their lives are so out of control that the only thing that they have power over is to end their life. I cannot say one way or another. I know suicide is not the path for me, but neither can I condemn it in another. I do not believe people are weak for committing suicide. All I know is that it the most personal decision anyone can make, and I can only pray that they will have the ability to choose the right decision for themselves. I always believe that to live is the stronger alternative, but I know my reality is not the same as others'. -Sazerac __________________ "And all my days are trances, and all my nightly dreams, Are where thy grey eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams, In what ethereal dances, by what eternal streams..."