(no subject)
This is what I was trying to say earlier, only a little more logical. Please read it, even if you don't agree with me. I think it'll make a little more sense this way.
I am an aestheticist. The very core of aestheticism is art for art's sake. From what I understand, you seem to be under the impression that there is something immoral about this philosophy.
I feel rather like Swinburne after he was criticized for writing Faustine, or Baudelaire when Les Fleurs du Mal was banned in Paris. People react so strongly to aestheticism because it so frequently takes what is ugly in the world and makes it beautiful, and frightens its readers with its seductive danger.
The story I am working on does portray suicide in a romantic light. It was not my intention to condone suicide by writing this, however I must admit that I wanted the reader to feel sympathetic towards the main character's acceptance of her mother's death.
You know, by now, how I feel about suicide. I think it's cowardly and I would never dream of doing it myself or encouraging anyone else to do so. But art has nothing to do with my own beliefs on the subject; I can only open the doors. My characters must walk through them alone.
You think I need to show how unhealthy suicide is and not romanticize it. I understand where you're coming from, but I am not a moralist and I don't intend to be. I simply want to tell a story. This one happens to be about suicide. I didn't want to make it romantic, but rather tragic. However, a tragedy is worthless if the audience cannot sympathize with the protaganists. I, as the author, am not here to judge the characters. My purpose is merely to give them a voice.
Art cannot be moral or immoral. Morality does not exist there. As Walter Pater said, "Art has no more definite meaning than an accidental play of sunlight and of shadow upon the wall or floor." I paint the scene as I see it; and if the colors I use are gentle and kind in the face of my character's suicide, then that is simply because I love her and feel moved by her act of pain.
I can emphasize the damaging consequences of suicide, but I'm not sure that I really see the necessity of doing so. It is readily apparent in nearly every line of my story as it is. The main character would not feel so lost or so attracted to the temporary comfort of the ocean if her mother hadn't killed herself. Her father would still be happy and they might have a better relationship. I think the greatest tragedy of all is in the daughter's romanticizing of suicide. I think that, above all else, shows the worst and most horrible effect of suicide.
The problem, I suppose, lies in the fact that the story is told from the daughter's pov. The tragedy would be far more obvious if it were told from her father's perspective, as he watches his daughter follow a similar path as his wife.
But death is a very seductive thing and I'm not sorry for portraying it that way. There's a part of me that's fascinated by the tenderness of these emotions, and how heart breakingly delicate they really are. This is a story about someone who has become victim to that seduction. To say that such a story should never be written is to discredit Shakespeare, Homer, Ovid, Keats, Poe, Sappho, Shelley, Millay, Swinburne, Tennyson and far too many more writers for me to possibly ever name them all.
The reason I love art is because it is free to express the full range of human emotion without the restraints of morality or personal opinion. When I write, it doesn't matter how I feel or think about a subject; what matters is the beauty and the ugliness of human nature, the intensity of passion, the many colors of the soul.
I did not create this story; I discovered it. I feel no need to apologize for that.
However, if it would make you happy, I can put more emphasis on the tragedy and less on the romantic qualities of the story; the reason they're there in the first place is because the protaganist is searching to gain happiness by filling the void left behind by her mother; unfortunately, her mother is dead. The combination of maternal affection and death that she finds in the ocean (or rather, in herself) is what leads to the romanticizing of suicide.
Perhaps this is too subtle for the reader and needs to be more obvious. I'll do my best to make it clearer, but the most important thing to me is not my message but my story.