Suicide by Modernism

Suicide by Modernism

The memoir The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon makes me think of a recent painting, Suicide by Modernism by Mark Kostabi. In this painting the artist shows how modernism, the not traditional ways are overpowering tradition. In the painting the artist shows a lot of his icons of art (Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and more), which are all surrounded by a man who has just committed suicide. This shows how all the artists above, all of the 20^th century has influenced this individual. This shows the power of art and the power that persons have on other and how this can produce effects on the behaviors of others.

In this case, what the painting is showing is how the power of the 20^th century influenced this individual to take his life.

I am reminded of the book in the painting because Brent is also influenced by his classmates. This also occurs in the 20^th century. His classmates didn’t influence him to kill himself, but that the pressure of society made him do that. I am not excusing him in what he did but I understand that he felt anxiety because he wanted people to like him. Brent thought that if he continued living everyone would hate him, but it was on the contrary, if he would take his life, everyone would miss him. He realizes this after the accident.

 The painting reminds me of the book in many ways but one is because in the book Brent makes a rushed decision because of society, this decision made him do something he didn’t really want to do with his body, ‘I don’t want to die anymore’ says Brent in page 44. Just like in the painting everything might seem normal, natural, and the colors give the painting joy, but the space that the man who hung himself represents a lot of distance in what was really occurring. He is distanced himself from reality, and this is what Brent did, he distanced himself and didn’t think of what could happen, he only thought of the consequences that would happen if he continued living, which in comparison, are minimal.

The same happens with Brent, everything seems fine, and at the beginning he is just doing mischiefs he was playing, but he never really understands it what reality is until he feels the pain and understands the pain.

In the book we understand that Brent knows that what he did is wrong and that he doesn’t quite understand why he did it because the reasons just seem invalid now that he is in pain, ‘those don’t seem like good reasons anymore’.

We tend to criticize society, but we are society.  We hate the people, but we are the people.