Darkness Visible

William Styron’s wife, Rose, is mentioned in the novel but is not present. Styron does not show the way they interact in their marriage or the conflicts caused by his depression. He gives very little information about Rose or her life. He does, however, briefly describe her patience and support and how she cared for him as he began to feel more and more helpless and infantile. When Styron reaches the point of near suicide, Rose makes the telephone calls that lead to her husband’s admittance to a hospital.

Rose is also a writer who has published several volumes of poetry. She has spoken out and given interviews about her experiences as a caretaker and how she continued to be vigilant after Styron’s first depressive episode, to intervene so he didn’t suffer alone.  

Styron does not give the real name of his first psychiatrist, but Dr. Gold began to treat Styron when he returned from Paris. Styron is skeptical of Dr. Gold’s competence, and he shows the doctor’s shortcomings in the realm of mental health when Dr. Gold tries to avoid hospitalizing Styron because of the stigma.

Camus (1913-1960) was a French-Algerian writer and philosopher, whose theories about suicide and the meaningless of life spoke particularly to Styron, especially as he was deep in depression. One of the great disappointments of Styron’s life was that he did not get to meet Camus, since Camus died before the planned meeting could take place. 

A friend of Styron’s, Gary (1914-1980) was a French writer and film director. He shows the alternative path when mental illness progresses without proper treatment. Styron remembers seeing Gary along with Gary’s ex-wife, actress Jean Seberg, just before Seberg’s severe depression led her to take her own life. A year later, Styron saw in Gary the physical signs of the ravages of depression that he would later see in himself. Gary committed suicide a year after Seberg did.

Although Styron does not talk about this in Visible Darkness, near the end of Gary’s life, Gary showed signs of psychosis. Upon discovering that Seberg had once had an affair with actor Clint Eastwood, Gary challenged Eastwood to a duel (Eastwood declined). In Gary’s suicide note, he insisted that his death was not due to Seberg’s suicide, but his note also demonstrated further mental imbalance and delusion.

Styron discusses Jarrell’s death as an example of the stigma associated with suicide. Jarrell (1914-1965), who had a history of depression and a previous suicide attempt, died when he was struck by a car. Although it was extremely likely that Jarrell’s death was on purpose, his widow and other friends and family insisted so adamantly that he couldn’t have killed himself that the coroner ended up listing the death as accidental.

Much like Jarrell, when political activist Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) died of a drug overdose, his family tried to argue that his death had been accidental. The coroner, however, discovered such a massive dose of barbiturates in his system that he ruled Hoffman’s death a suicide. Hoffman’s death demonstrates the fear, guilt, and stigma experienced by someone whose loved one commits suicide, as though the dead person’s character is posthumously tarnished.