Darkness Visible

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1989

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-10

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Suicide and Mental Illness

In Darkness Visible, Styron expounds on depression and suicide. He examines two questions: where did this disease come from, and why me? He wonders why his depression became especially bad, and why some people survive and others don’t. Although Styron never reaches a conclusion, he does speculate about how both events in his childhood and alcohol withdrawal might have caused the onset of his symptoms.

Styron challenges the stigma surrounding depression and suicide by taking on the questions that arise when someone commits suicide. When loved ones ask why the person did it, there is rarely a simple answer. Nevertheless, Styron realizes that silence is killing people. Fear of the stigma, for example, led his doctor to delay hospitalizing him. Stigma made it impossible for the loved ones of Abbie Hoffman and Randall Jarrell to accept that the two men killed themselves. When Styron began thinking seriously about committing suicide, the stigma led him to imagine ways that he could die ambiguously, by making himself ill or staging a car accident. The same stigma made it difficult to ask for help.

Styron’s main argument is that society must change the way it thinks about mental illness in order to save lives. Instead of making moral judgments or ascribing weakness of character to those who kill themselves, Styron suggests viewing suicide as the last stage of a terminal disease. Although not all depression is fatal, and sometimes treatment can stave off death, the compulsion to commit suicide is not an active choice that one makes with all of one’s mental faculties. Additionally, depression is both common and unrelated to morality or strength of character.

Loss: The Heart of Depression

The memoir begins with the loss of Paris. Styron, who has just recognized that he is seriously contemplating suicide, realizes that he will probably never see Paris again. His understanding of this loss shows that depression and suicide are not choices, but things that happen to someone who is suffering.

When Styron contemplates suicide or considers the suicides of others, he discusses the losses that occur even beyond the loss of a loved one. The guilt and anger felt by those left behind cast a pall on pleasant memories of the person who died. When Styron was on the brink of killing himself, what stopped him was the idea of the loss he would inflict on his family.

Even on those who don’t commit suicide, depression takes a toll. Styron describes the loss of mental faculties and the ability to be present in one’s life. Additionally, he lost his voice as it aged and changed. He lost his libido and his ability to enjoy things that were typically pleasurable. When he thought back to Paris in the 1950s, Styron realized that he has lost whatever part of his mental faculties made it seem different when he was younger. He describes the grief of the pending loss, when he was sure that he would die soon.

Styron speculates that loss is both the heart of depression and its cause. The loss of alcohol as a coping mechanism felt traumatic, and it may have triggered his symptoms. Styron also remembers the loss of his mother, who died when he was 13 years old, which likely contributed to the depression that overshadowed his life. As his depression worsened, Styron lost all that felt familiar to him, even though it was still all around him.

The Inadequacy of Language

Styron takes issue with the word “depression,” favoring the more descriptive “melancholia,” a diagnostic term from the early 20th century. He found “depression” inadequate to describe his experience; its colloquial use to refer to temporary despondency or situational sadness had lessened its impact. Thus, most people who have not experienced clinical depression tend to minimize it, since the overused word no longer has the gravity it deserves.

As a writer, Styron is preoccupied with what he sees as his inability to describe depression, which to him is an indescribable experience. Unlike localized pain with a visible injury or illness as the cause, pain that is psychological or psychologically induced isn’t easily pinpointed or explained. For those who haven’t experienced catastrophic depression, it is difficult to imagine it as different from the pain of temporary sadness or loss. When language is inadequate to describe psychological pain, medical professionals struggle to absorb the pain’s gravity and the severity of their patients’ suffering.

Throughout the memoir, Styron tries different metaphors to describe his depression and his suicidal urges. He compares his fantasies about suicide to sexual fantasies experienced by those who still have strong libidos. He talks about depression as a storm in his brain—not a violent storm or a storm that clears away the excess, but a storm that causes chaos and confusion. He compares his depressed mind to a telephone exchange in a small town that is slowly flooded and shut down, piece by piece. He also calls living in his brain similar to being trapped in a stiflingly hot room. Thus, he tries to use language to capture the ethos of depression, even if he can’t adequately describe literal sensations.