History BungledSuicide / Literature

* In Jaroslav Hasek's ''Literature/TheGoodSoldierŠvejk'' Švejk tells a story about a cadet driven to suicide by uncertainty of cadets' official status.[[note]]Kadett-Stellvertreter -- "cadet officer candidate" -- a graduate of an officer school who has just started service in his regiment. They were neither soldiers, nor officers, nor [=NCOs=], thus nobody knew if they should get what soldiers get, or what officers get. As a result they got nothing: no food in the canteen, no blankets in the hospital and so on.[[/note]] As Švejk puts it:

* In Jaroslav Hasek's ''The Good Soldier Švejk'' Švejk tells a story about a cadet driven to suicide by uncertainty of cadets' official status.[[note]]Kadett-Stellvertreter -- "cadet officer candidate" -- a graduate of an officer school who has just started service in his regiment. They were neither soldiers, nor officers, nor [=NCOs=], thus nobody knew if they should get what soldiers get, or what officers get. As a result they got nothing: no food in the canteen, no blankets in the hospital and so on.[[/note]] As Švejk puts it:

* In a very ridiculous scene in Petronius's ''Satyricon'', widely considered to be the first modern novel (written in ancient Rome), one character tries to [[HangingAround hang himself]] off of a bedpost. The post being so low, he fails, but another character comes in and sees him lying there, thinks he's dead, and tries to kill himself with the first knife he grabs, which turns out to be a prop. HilarityEnsues.

* In ''Sometimes a Great Notion'', [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Leland is introduced]] with one of these. As he explains later, he was lying in bed waiting for his house to fill with the gas he'd turned on in the kitchen when he suddenly decides to have a cigarette. The house explodes, but Leland is miraculously unharmed, and he finds a letter from his brother (along with an understandably confused postman) on what's left of his front porch and decides that he might as well return home and help his family fill their logging quota.

* In ''Sometimes a Great Notion'', [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Leland is introduced]] with one of these. As he explains later, he was lying in bed waiting for his house to fill with the gas he'd turned on in the kitchen when he [[WhatAnIdiot suddenly decides to have a cigarette]]. The house explodes, but Leland is miraculously unharmed, and he finds a letter from his brother (along with an understandably confused postman) on what's left of his front porch and decides that he might as well return home and help his family fill their logging quota.

* In a very ridiculous scene in Petronius's ''Satyricon'', widely considered to be the first modern novel (written in ancient Rome), one character tries to hang himself off of a bedpost. The post being so low, he fails, but another character comes in and sees him lying there, thinks he's dead, and tries to kill himself with the first knife he grabs, which turns out to be a prop. HilarityEnsues.

* In ''Le Voyage où il vous plaira'' (roughly "Travel where you will"), by Alfred de Musset and PJ Stahl, the devil tolds the tale of a man that tried to commit suicide by hanging himself over a river, taking some poison and, for extra security, shooting himself with a pistol... that misses and cuts the rope so he falls onto the river and drinks too much water that makes him thrown up, cleaning the poison from his stomach. Yes, exactly like the infamous Darwin Award.

* ''Literature/TheOutsider2018'': Fred Peterson decides to hang himself after losing his entire family. He hopes that jumping off a footstool with a noose around his neck will snap his neck, thus instant death. It fails and instead he's strangled, which kicks in his survival reflexes and he tries to save himself. Then the branch breaks. He is found unconscious by his elderly neighbor, who gives him mouth on mouth resuscitation till an ambulance arrives. In the end, Peterson ends up in a coma from which he is unlikely to recover.

* ''Literature/TheEssexSerpent'': Luke Garrett decides to kill himself by hanging on a belt from a tree. He does it and almost dies but halfway through, he stops because he thinks of his best friend.

** In ''Literature/TheBellJar'', Esther tries to kill herself 3 times (by cutting, hanging, and drowning, in order) before she actually attempts to go through with it. She then takes a large amount of sleeping pills in a hole in the basement, only for her to be found, sent to the hospital, and end up in an asylum.

* Before the beginning of ''Literature/LuckyJim'', Margaret tried unsuccessfully to kill herself with sleeping pills. She's still emotionally fragile after the fact.

* A popular cause of death for [[Literature/TheBible Judas Iscariot]], born of [[Literature/TheFourGospels differing]] [[Literature/ActsOfTheApostles accounts]] of his demise, is his suicide by hanging in Matthew going so horribly wrong that he suffers a terrible fall that results in his innards spilling out, as in the Acts of the Apostles.

* In ''YouOnlyLiveTwice'', it's an open secret that "Dr. Guntram Shatterhand's" so-called "Garden of Death" full of various poisons and dangers (He's a botanist! So what?) is meant to attract the suicidal. It's ''also'' noted, by the time Bond gets there and the bodies have really piled up, how ''no one'' botches it and walks away marked; they ''always'' come out all-dead.

* In ''Sometimes a Great Notion'', [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Leland is introduced]] with one of these. As he explains later, he was lying in bed waiting for his house to fill with the gas he'd turned on in the kitchen, when he [[WhatAnIdiot suddenly decides to have a cigarette]]. The house explodes, but Leland is miraculously unharmed, and he finds a letter from his brother (along with an understandably confused postman) on what's left of his front porch and decides that he might as well return home and help his family fill their logging quota.

* In ''Literature/TheIdiot'', Ippolit Terentyev attempts to shoot himself in the head, but his gun doesn't fire. Although other characters speculate that he was just {{Attention Whor|e}}ing, and that he had deliberately loaded his gun incorrectly.

* In ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'', the Narrator [[TheSociopath Alex]] can't conventionally kill himself because [[RestrainingBolt the thought of violence makes him cripplingly ill]] - the reason he wants to kill himself in the first place. In a moment of sudden desperation he leaps from an apartment window, only to break most of his bones and wind up immobile and unable to talk in the hospital instead of dead. Needless to say, he isn't pleased.

* It’s revealed in ''Literature/TheDeathCure'' that Newt tried to kill himself by jumping off one of the Walls some time before Thomas’s arrival. He survived, but broke his leg, hence his permanent limp.

-->Razors pain you;\\

* In ''Literature/TheVampireChronicles'' several vampires including Lestat, Louis, Armand and Mael attempt to commit SuicideBySunlight. They end up surviving while suffering severe pain, since they are simply too old and powerful.

* ''Literature/TheOutsider2018'': Fred Peterson decides to hang himself after losing his entire family. He hopes that jumping off a foot stool with a noose around his neck will snap his neck, thus instant death. It fails and instead he's strangled, which kicks in his survival reflexes and he tries to save himself. Then the branch breaks. He is found unconscious by his elderly neighbor, who gives him mouth on mouth resuscitation till an ambulance arrives. In the end, Peterson ends up in a coma from which he is unlikely to recover.

* ''Literature/TheEssexSerpent'': Luke Garrett decides to kill himself by hanging on a belt from a tree. He does it and almost dies, but halfway through he stops because he thinks of his best friend.

* [[RetiredMonster Daylen]] at the beginning of ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror,'' due to having committed [[FinalSolution Hitler-tier crimes]] against humanity throughout his life and then [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone seen the error of his ways]] in his old age. Living on a WorldInTheSky, he elects to jump off the edge. But since this occurs in ''chapter three'', you probably don't need us to tell you that [[FirstEpisodeSpoiler he doesn't get the result he expected]].

* In ''Literature/TheIdiot'', Ippolit Terentyev attempts to shoot himself in the head, but his gun doesn't fire. Although other characters speculate that he was just AttentionWhoring, and that he had deliberately loaded his gun incorrectly.

* ''Literature/TheOutsider'': Fred Peterson decides to hang himself after losing his entire family. He hopes that jumping off a foot stool with a noose around his neck will snap his neck, thus instant death. It fails and instead he's strangled, which kicks in his surival reflexes and he tries to save himself. Then the branch breaks. He is found unconscious by his elderly neighbor, who gives him mouth on mouth resuscitation till an ambulance arrives. In the end, Peterson ends up in a coma from which he is unlikely to recover.

* Ethan and Mattie in the novella ''Literature/EthanFrome''.

* In the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, [[Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy Vanyel]] tries to kill himself in the chapel where his dead love Tylendel is laid out pre-burial. Yfandes raises the alarm in time for rescuers to save Vanyel's life, aided by the fact that Vanyel "didn't know the right way to slit his wrists".

** In ''The Bell Jar'', Esther tries to kill herself 3 times (by cutting, hanging, and drowning, in order) before she actually attempts to go through with it. She then takes a large amount of sleeping pills in a hole in the basement, only for her to be found, sent to the hospital, and end up in an asylum.

** Hazel' in ''Literature/BigBlonde'' attempts suicide by taking a bottle of veronal. Due to her weight, she just ends up in a comatose state.

* Dorothy Parker's 1926 poem "Resumé" alludes to the trope: