| Abstract [eng] |
The turn of the 21st century, a so-called turning-point, is an exceptional period for the multitude of processes that took place in Lithuania. Historical circumstances led to radical changes in lives of the state and the individual and had an effect on the political, economic and cultural spheres as well as on the psyche of the society. The weakening of social regulation, the collapse of established norms and rules, and the devaluation of values led to a general anomie, which could often end up in suicide at the individual level and even cause so-called epidemics of suicide. This paper analyzes the depiction of self-destruction and attempted suicide in the prose of the most eminent Lithuanian writers of the period – Jurga Ivanauskaitė, Ričardas Gavelis and Tomas Arūnas Rudokas. The aim of the paper is to analyse the selected works from the sociological, psychosocial and literary perspectives in order to examine the the topic of suicide, its scope and means of expression in the turning-point literature. It is also important to distinguish the connection of this representation with Emile Durkheim’s psychosocial theory of suicide, Edwin S. Shneidman’s theory of psychogenic needs and the approach of psychological motivation, suggested by Danutė Gailienė. This paper presupposes that there is a connection between the extremely high suicide rates in Lithuania in 1990-1996 and its depiction in Lithuanian prose of the turning-point literature. The psychosocial theory of suicide holds the level of integration of society and the attitudes it fosters responsible for having effect on individual’s decision to commit suicide. The first chapter of this paper explores the concept of suicide and influences of such act based on the works of Emile Durkheim, Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, Edwin S. Shneidman, and Grigory Tcharkhartishvili. Given perspective on suicide from the points of sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and cultural history enables to capture the interplay between the individual's inner state and the social world. The second chapter of this paper provides an overview of the dynamics in Lithuanian suicide statistics in the XX-XXI centuries and the reasons behind this shift. The third part provides a brief overview of both global and local tradition of suicide depiction in literature and reveals the transformation of the suicidal discourse throughout the different periods of history. Supposedly, not only the existing concept of individuality and common societal attitude influence the way suicide is depicted in the academic papers and the works of fiction, but also these depictions hold a power to shape them as well. The fourth chapter explains the concept of turning-point literature and discusses the transformation of Lithuanian literary thought of the period. The fifth, sixth and seventh parts are focused on the analysis of the works of Ivanauskaitė, Gavelis and Rudokas. These writers developed characters that share the identity of crisis, therefore they are unable to express it, they drift between multiple choices from one extreme to the other, unable to make sense of their situation, neither find their peace. In addition, this type of character is more prone to self-destruction and suicide. Selected authors not only reflect the reality of the period, but also unveil the inner world of their characters, the complexity of the sensitive relationship they experience with reality and themselves. This analysis has proven that the period of turning-point holds more representations of suicide in literature than the periods before that. The closer to the turning-point, the stronger imagery conveys the characters' frustration, their feelings of loneliness and meaninglessness, and the confrontation between the familiar and the alien they experience. In the early works of Ivanauskaitė and Gavelis, and in the novel by Rudokas's, suicide is believed to be the reliable way out of misery and psychological dead-end. |
