Edouard Manet, Le Suicide, 1877

"Singer left his luggage in the middle of the station floor. Then he walked to the shop. He greeted the jeweler for whom he worked with a listless turn of his hand. When he went out again there was something heavy in his pocket. For a while he rambled with bent head along the streets. But the unrefracted brilliance of the sun, the humid heat, oppressed him. He returned to his room with swollen eyes and an aching head. After resting he drank a glass of iced coffee and smoked a cigarette. Then when he had washed the ash tray and the glass he brought out a pistol from his pocket and put a bullet in his chest." 
- Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Beautiful in its own morbidity, Manet's Le Suicide significantly departs from the delicate forms of his well known nudes, such as Olympia, and replaces them with a horrific, yet calm, image of self-destruction. The man's position on the edge of the bed, and his decision to fire into his gut as opposed to his head denote a reluctance in the act. However, his facial expression seems to be one of bewilderment, more so than pain or regret. He gazes up at the ceiling, towards the sky, and thus towards "heaven." These elements, combined with what is believed to be a painting of a monk on the back wall, and the placing of his body, have led some to believe that the piece represents the crucifixion of artists, with possible autobiographical sentiments from Manet.

Manet had a fondness for creating portraits of Jesus being accosted, such as in his piece Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers. His fascination with such scenes seemed to go hand in hand with the poor reviews that he received throughout his career. The constant flow of negative reviews and the stress from not meeting expectations led Manet to sympathize with to figures such as Christ, who took on unspeakable pain for others. Manet, some claim, seems to be suggesting through works such as Jesus Mocked by Soldiers and Le Suicide that the burden of the artist was similarly painful. John Singer, the deaf-mute protagonist from Carson McCullers masterpiece The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, feels this same burden when he is given care of the trust, hopes, and downfalls of four people in a Georgia town. In the end, the burden, as well as his loneliness lead him to take his own life. In much the same way, Manet seems to suggest that the burden on artists to create meaningful and popular works creates a weight that few can truly carry.