Life Well Ended: Part II

CS-Crucifix-Pixabay

CS-Crucifix-PixabaySuffering is a Reality… When Perceived as Such

Since its premiere a few weeks ago, there has been a lot of discussion of the film Me Before You, an adaptation of the novel by Jojo Moyes.  For those who do not know, the plot revolves around a man named Will Traynor who was left a quadriplegic by an accident and is now fixated on committing suicide.  In  the novel, a character discusses him with his caretaker, Louisa.  He is of the opinion that Will has “been dealt the [worst] hand of cards you can imagine.  And you know what? . . . I can’t judge him for what he wants to do.  It’s his choice.”  This is the most horrible “compassionate” logic I have ever seen.  Who decides what the worst hand of cards is anyway?  What about those who have unexpectedly lost a spouse or are given weeks to live?  If this proposition is taken to its logical conclusion, it means that we could all take our own lives as soon as things get hard.  This comes from the popular atheistic emphasis on personal autonomy, which makes each person his own arbiter of what is best and worst, at best a dangerous game to play.

 It can be argued that this value system takes the meaning out of life, but that is a topic for another time.  Disregarding that, while I would certainly not say quadriplegics deserve no pity, Will would not feel nearly as much need for it if he tried to spend more time living well and less time feeling sorry for himself.  How much suffering a condition causes is really determined by perception, not the condition itself.  Conversely, there are some arguments for saying Will really does have a difficult life, for example, his enforced helplessness and the great amount of pain he has to endure.  Those two points, in particular, are interesting because the unlucky like Will are not the only ones who endure them.  I read once about an Iraqi veteran who suffered terrible burns from a bomb.  Now, the tiniest movement is excruciating to him and, like Will, he cannot even feed himself.  Yet, to him, the suffering is endurable, because he did it to protect our country.  Again, perception determines reality.

Consider a further example from The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.  Randy himself was an inspiration because he cherished all life gave him even while dying of cancer.  However, maybe even more inspirational is someone he mentions in passing, his old landlord, Sandy Blatt.  Sandy too suffered an accident that left him a quadriplegic, and could easily have become a real-life Will.  Instead, he went on with his life.  Randy said, “He had this incredible non-whining aura about him.”  Not that people like Will do not exist, but they most likely have bigger problems in their minds than in their bodies.  Thus, Sandy Blatt, though unknown, is a real role model, and Will the “hero” of a false love story.

He Loves Her… Less Than Himself

Returning to the love aspect, in multiple scenes Will emphasizes that he wants Louisa to go out and have adventures, which he claims her remaining with him, as she would do if he lived, would prohibit.  In claiming this, he pretends to desire her greatest good, but, in actuality, if he wanted her good, he ought at least to have listened to her ideas for him, and tried to give life another chance.  Instead, he not only does not even try to delay his suicide but begs her to come watch him die.  He even says, “if you do love me, Clark, as you say you do,” thus attaching a condition, which is not real love.  Furthermore, the book establishes from the beginning that Louisa does not believe in assisted suicide.  I would not see a problem with his wanting her at the clinic if Louisa had never objected to the idea in general, but she does and puts it aside for him, as does his family.  Someone with an honest love in his heart would never try to convince someone he truly cared about to abandon her principles.  Therefore, any “love” Will has for her is really self-love, masquerading as agape love.  Additionally, it again shows Will wanting to make himself up to be God, since for the pious His dictates are the greatest, but Will here tries to supersede her conscience, unfortunately succeeding.  Admittedly, as a presumed atheist, Louisa would have much less reason to hold to her principles than, say, an orthodox Jew, but that does not change the inherent evil of Will’s action.

There is Real Love in the World

The back of the book asks, “What do you do when making the person you love happy means breaking your own heart?”  This is a poor story to which to apply any such question, because in it something requested by the loved, even if the lover is coerced, is allowed to supersede any higher morals.  However, I can think of one secular story that does have true agape love: Disney’s Tangled.  Rapunzel would willingly give up any joy she has in living just to save Flynn’s life.  Flynn, in turn, cuts her magic hair so that she can be free, even though it means his death.  The beauty of the story would have been destroyed had either of them been coerced, or if Rapunzel believed that imprisoning herself to let Mother Gothel live was immoral.  Agape love, as Rapunzel and Flynn show, must be totally focused on the good of the other.

 Louisa does seem to have a selfless love for Will, though misguided.  Will, however, does not love anything that way, nonetheless many are being roped into this story and saying how romantic it is.  No, it is not.  Louisa starts and ends as good, but Will objectifies her, wants her to conform to his will, and acts hugely selfish.  Even the very name “Me Before You” seems an allusion to his selfishness.  I believe if the women who are so enthralled by this story understood its larger implications, most would throw it down in horror.  No woman I know enjoys being told she is not enough, and then getting begged to abandon her morals.  

Finally, I would like to mention two things Moyes herself said.  First, she mentioned in an interview realizing “the issue [of assisted suicide] was not as clear-cut as I would have liked to believe.”  If I could speak to her now, here is what I would tell her: With all due respect, Ms. Moyes, you are wrong.  If Will’s reasoning were to be applied more broadly, that would mean we could all die as soon as life got hard, meaning there is little reason to live through anything difficult.  Nor do all quadriplegics hate their lives, as Sandy Blatt’s life showed.  (There was a small mention of happy quads in the book, but it did not balance out the negativity.)   

God Help Us: Suicide

Frankly, you showed Will himself as thinking his life had become better than ever with Louisa in it, and to have him refuse to even delay suicide was terrible of you.  It would have at least been more effective if you had left out the part about the “best six months.”  As it is, Will is shown as a much sicker man by that one line.  Now, as you noted in the book, Ms. Moyes, if a strong character like Will puts his mind to something, no one can steer him from it.  However, regardless of your personal opinions on suicide, there is no reason people like Louisa or Will’s family should be coerced into agreeing with something which they condemn otherwise, merely because their family member wants it.  God help us if suicide, assisted or otherwise, gains greater societal acceptance because of stories like this.

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2 thoughts on “Life Well Ended: Part II”

  1. Life is it’s own reward, challenge, curse. You said it well by taking both sides and paring them down to
    basics. It is ironic however, that when it comes right down to it, birth is assisted mortality.

  2. “No woman I know enjoys being told she is not enough, and then getting begged to abandon her morals.”
    First of all, thank you for your essay, well-written and true in every respect. I would just like to expand on one of your sentences pasted above. I can’t help but think of how women today are betrayed by the scourge of pornography (may seen a stretch to this other topic) but I feel if a man views pornography he tells his woman she is not enough, and she may feel she is actually begged to abandon her morals by somehow “accepting” this awful behavior as normal. Does that make any sense?
    Anyway, I enjoyed reading your truth about excuses in this movie for REAL love.

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