Why is Hedda suicidal when she has everything she could dream of?

English philosopher Simon Critchley delves into even darker territory with his latest book, "I want to die, I hate my life." This new volume can be seen as a follow-up to his acclaimed work on tragedy, "Tragedy. The Greeks and Us," but with a more somber perspective, as the title suggests.

Critchley, known for exploring the liminal spaces between disciplines, bridges topics as diverse as David Bowie, Martin Heidegger, mysticism, suicide, and football. His recurring interest in theater is deeply personal. "It is the darkness I enjoy in drama... It is uplifting in a strange way, just a catastrophe going on and on..." he muses.

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It is the darkness I enjoy in drama... It is uplifting in a strange way, just a catastrophe going on and on...

The book features three essays on the tragic and one on Samuel Beckett. Critchley begins with Racine's "Fedra," the national tragedy of the French stage. He analyzes Fedra's obsessive love for her stepson Hippolytos, framing her existence as a "blood-stained torment" inflicted by Venus, a "virus running through her veins." Critchley argues that for this modern Fedra, life offers no exit except death, yet even that path seems blocked.

Instead of focusing solely on Jansenism and Catholic doctrines of sin, Critchley draws upon his philosophical influences. He extensively employs Martin Heidegger's concept of "Faktizität", facticity, or the state of being thrown into existence, to illuminate Fedra's experience of being oppressed and trapped. The book explores the burden of existence and the struggle against overwhelming circumstances.

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Now my eye's light is extinguished, and death restores to heaven the brilliance I have sullied.