Suicide and the “Ajax” of Sophocles

The Ajax is not generally considered to be one of Sophocles' masterpieces, yet it is by no means an inconsiderable drama; in fact, it is profoundly moving in a number of places and, skilfully performed, could easily engender the pity and terror that Aristotle found at the heart of the tragic experience. However, my present interest in the play is not a literary one, and I want to make clear from the beginning that I will not attempt to analyze the manner in which Sophocles employs self-murder to further the successful working of the aesthetic contraption which is the play. On the contrary, I mean to confine myself solely to the psychoanalytic implications of the hero's behavior with the aim of discovering whether or not the playwright's depiction of suicide clarifies in any way the conclusions we are reaching in our current investigations, and too, whether or not there seems to be a kind of omni-temporality to the motivational dynamics of self-destruction in Western society. My turning to Sophocles for such information and clarification is easily explained: in his hands the drama was the mirror of life. One has only to think of such characters as Oedipus, Electra, Orestes and Antigone to appreciate how greatly he has helped us to fathom what might be called the emotional realities; our understanding of repression, guilt, anxiety, infantile sexuality, aggression—indeed, of the nature of the human experience in general—has been sharpened immeasurably through an exposure to his genius. It may be too that our understanding of suicide can profit from that genius.