quote · Legacy record
A phenomenon that a number of people have noted while in deep depression is the sense of being accompanied by a second self — a wraithlike observer who, not sharing the dementia of his double, is able to watch with dispassionate curiosity as his companion struggles against the oncoming disaster, or decides to embrace it. There is a theatrical quality about all this, and during the next several days, as I went about stolidly preparing for extinction, I couldn't shake off a sense of melodrama — a melodrama in which I, the victim-to-be of self-murder, was both the solitary actor and lone member of the audience.
A phenomenon that a number of people have noted while in deep depression is the sense of being accompanied by a second self — a wraithlike observer who, not sharing the dementia of his double, is able to watch with dispassionate curiosity as his companion struggles against the oncoming disaster, or decides to embrace it. There is a theatrical quality about all this, and during the next several days, as I went about stolidly preparing for extinction, I couldn't shake off a sense of melodrama — a melodrama in which I, the victim-to-be of self-murder, was both the solitary actor and lone member of the audience.
Approximate author period: c. 1965 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- William Styron
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1965 AD · modern
Approximate period for the recorded attribution to William Styron, based on documented lifetime 1925 to 2006. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q245257 (checked 2026-10-08). This is not a quotation composition date or independent authentication of its attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q245257 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 169021; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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