DONNE'S "BIATHANATOS" (VIOLENT DEATH)

DONNE'S "BIATHANATOS" (Violent Death)

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© March 28, 2011

John Donne, the poet, wrote a little book on suicide, a book that was not embraced or considered especially clarifying of what he called “self-homicide.”  Donne’s son, after his father’s death, published it in 1647, some 364 years ago. 

As accomplished as the poet was, he seemed in later years to be thinking of himself in the past, questioning his contributions to the world, wondering why he had been sent into life.  He expressed it in these words:

“Thou passest out of the world, as thy hand passes out of a basin of water, which may be somewhat the fowler for thy washing in it, but retaines no other impression of thy having been there.”

He came to question that his one ambition had been to achieve contentment, of building “thine own Palace” within the self as a snail is happy within a shell, of being inconspicuous as fishes which “glide, leaving no print where they passe.”

He wrote such things when he was no longer in demand, no longer read, no longer asked to recite his works, no longer important.  In his rural exile, he was a fish out of water.  Fortunately, he satisfied his need for “self-homicide” by writing BIATHANATOS.

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My thoughts returned to Donne, whom I had read during a crisis in my own life, a crisis not unlike someone who hung himself last Tuesday (March 22, 2011).  In a very brief column, sandwiched at the bottom of the page in the metro section of the St. Petersburg Times was this: USF grad student hangs himself.

The young man was twenty-nine, a graduate engineer (civil) currently working on a graduate degree in architecture.  He was found by a jogger on campus where he hung himself from a tree with a suicide note nearby. 

My heart went out to the young man, to his family and loved ones, to his classmates and friends.  No one knows better than a graduate student what an endurance contest it is to reach the ultimate level of achievement sought.

There is the demand of the studies, the demand of the faculty who have the power of the grade and signing off on each course that is taken as well as the final thesis or dissertation.  I remember the six years I was a graduate student after an international executive career cut short by resigning in my thirties.  

I had a wife and four children to support, who were moving from early adolescence into their double-digit years becoming real people.  I can remember working for the Professional Institute of the American Management Association and flying across the country nearly every week to conduct a seminar in Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Dallas, or Atlanta, and attending class sometimes sparingly. 

When I did attend class, I had to drive across Tampa Bay, fifty miles to and from class after sleeping little, and writing reports and papers into the night. 

I can remember one particular professor saying she heard I was an excellent writer, but if I wrote the best paper she had ever received I would still receive the lowest “F” she had ever given, advising me to drop her class.  I did, but it didn’t lower my stress level. 

It was at time when cosmetic change hit the university, and students were allowed to evaluate teachers.  Since I had had some experience in the activity, I didn’t give professors a free pass.  One found out.  He happened to be on my thesis committee, which didn’t augur well for me getting my degree. 

I wish I could have been there for this young man because I know the deep pit that a grad student can drop into with nothing to break his fall, that is, unless someone comes in out of the blue and saves him. 

I was saved by a professor in sociology, who found me cantankerous but worth saving, and came to my aid.  He guided me through the thesis defense process for my orals by having me behave as mechanical as a robot.  His name is Dr. Billy G. Gunter, and I can say I owe my life to him. 

You think me melodramatic?  Then you aren’t familiar with my direct in-your-face approach to life.  Dr. Gunter also advised me to get the hell out of dodge, which was the same university that this young man took his life.  And I did, taking my Ph.D. at Walden University under the firm but gentle guiding hand of Bernie Turner.  More than thirty years later these two men are my friends, colleagues and confidantes. 

So that the reader doesn’t get the false impression, there was nothing wrong with USF or its faculty, or its demands.  That was not the problem. 

There are at least four dimension of graduate study that makes it an endurance contest more than an intellectual experience:

There is the matter of stamina.  I fail to see why stamina should be more important than anything else, but it is.  Without stamina, the demands will simply be too much.

There is the matter of the student’s capability and expectations and how realistic they are.  As a graduate student professor, I have dealt with students that were pushed into graduate school, or thought it was cool to have a graduate degree, who would be happier and more gainfully involved if they were otherwise occupied.  Graduate school is about research, which means reading a lot, and being able to condense such research into a conceptual thesis that supports an argument and develops a train of thought and inquiry. 

There is the matter of finances.  Graduate school costs a lot of money, or can cost a lot of money.  Graduate work is best pursued totally immersed in study, which of course strains finances, especially if you have a family and have to produce income to support it and yourself.  Then there is the stress of student loans that may take years to repay, all of which puts inordinate pressure on the student of a financial nature.

There is the matter of psychological stability and emotional maturity to deal with clashes with professors, other students, family and friends, and of course, the work itself.  If it wasn’t draining enough with the demands of the work, life is bound to add conflict or challenge to the mix.  In my case, I learned I was not as secure a person, as much in control, or as strong as I thought I was.  My fragility surfaced and introduced it to myself, and it was scary.

There is the matter of pain.  This has to do with scary part, which is not about the course work.  It may not even be about the research, which is a display of the student’s faculty for pushing the envelop of knowledge.  The scary part is about the investment in time, capital, energy, study, discipline, devotion and ambition, and coming up empty. 

It is the scary feeling of not being able to make it to the finish line, that you are, as Donne saw himself, “a fish out of water.”  Someone or something is going to block your achievement.  Near collapse, with no energy to fight another day, the only thing you feel is the pain of exhaustion. 

When that hits, and it is likely to hit many if not most, depression can set in, and depression is not of the variety of hourly weekly session kind of depression with a counselor.  I am speaking of depression that wants relief from the pain, now!  It is what I believe drives a student to biathanatos.    

Reading of this young man’s suicide I am limp with grief.  May he rest in peace forever more.

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