Veronika Decides To Die

Eduard is a Slovenian man in his 20s who is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Through Eduard, the novel explores the pressures of family and middle-class life. Before coming to Villete, Eduard lived in Brazil with his father, a Yugoslavian ambassador (Yugoslavia has been dissolved by the time Veronika’s narrative begins). Eduard did not fit in with his upper-class peers and self-isolated. At 17, he met a girl named Maria who was greatly interested in new-age occultism. Eduard adopted her interests and, while he found a companion, began suffering in school. His parents worried about his grades and believed that their politician friends would judge them if they discovered that their son was a new-age spiritualist.

Through Eduard, the novel also explores the consequences of repressed desire. After a period of hospitalization due to a bicycle accident, Eduard’s life is changed by reading about unconventional visionaries who stuck to their visions no matter what. Eduard decided to become a painter to seek his own “visions of paradise,” which worsened his relationship with his parents. Eduard’s father backed him into a corner: Return to a “respectable” path in life or admit that he hates his parents. This broke Eduard’s spirit and resulted in a dubious diagnosis of schizophrenia that placed him in Villete, where he could no longer be an embarrassment to his father.

Eduard’s passion for life is stirred by Veronika. Veronika’s musical talent and desire to live make her an archetypal muse. The muse, usually a woman, is a figure in literature, poetry, and art that inspires the artist, who is usually a man, to make profound art on the human condition. Without the muse, the artist often becomes despondent and cannot create. Eduard is Veronika’s counterpart as the inspired artist. Through him, the novel illustrates how Veronika’s will to live authentically is infectious.

Zedka is Veronika’s first friend in Villete, and one of the many inmates who is moved by Veronika’s journey. Zedka has been diagnosed with chronic depression. Like Veronika, Zedka had a conventionally successful life. She has children, a doting husband, a house, and money. Zedka, however, missed an opportunity to live authentically and unorthodoxly when her “Impossible Love” from the United States slipped through her fingers. Zedka’s fixation on the wild, unorthodox path in life that she did not take contrasts sharply with her role as a faithful, unremarkable housewife. The dissonance between what Zedka wanted and what she received from life placed her in a deep, depressive spiral that landed her in Villete.

Zedka is the first of the Villete inmates to leave and start a new life on the outside. She is also the first to have contact with Veronika; this suggests that Veronika is a teacher who opens the eyes of the other “crazy” people to the true nature of normalcy. Zedka introduces Veronika to the notion that “sanity” is a baseless construct of majority opinion rather than something with intrinsic value. She does this through stories, such as the one about the wizard poisoning the wells, priming Veronika to embrace her desires. Zedka places the seeds of the novel’s key ideas within Veronika and helps her reclaim her desire to live.

Mari is a central figure in the Fraternity, a group of voluntary forever-patients in Villete that fake their symptoms to remain institutionalized Like the other members of the Fraternity, Mari views the outside world as incomprehensible and “insane,” unbeholden to logic, reason, or human desires. Mari is suggested to be in her mid-40s. Like the others, she had a conventionally successful life pre-Villete. Mari was a decorated lawyer who had devoted her life to legal justice. Ultimately, the legal system jaded her, and she came to view the judiciary system as malicious, inefficient, and designed to profit from suffering.

When Mari contemplated retiring and becoming a humanitarian aid worker, she began having regular panic attacks. These led to her self-isolate at home and take an indefinite leave of absence from work. After a brief stay in Villete to manage her panic attacks, she found herself unable to reintegrate into society. Word had spread about her stay, and she was shunned by both her husband and her law firm, who stigmatized people who seek help for mental health issues. Mari decided to remain in Villete when her life on the outside crumbled.

Mari, like the other named residents of Villete, is moved by Veronika’s plight and finds her own will to live on the outside. Mari vows to follow her dream of helping others once she leaves Villete, despite the unorthodox and risky nature of her desire. Where Zedka helps Veronika challenge her ideas of normalcy, Mari pushes Veronika to own her physical desires. Masturbation is a frequent conversation topic between the two women, and Mari suggests on multiple occasions that Veronika needs to experience her desires without inhibition.

Zedka challenges Veronika’s ingrained sense of normalcy in the abstract, and Mari challenges Veronika’s normalcy in the physical. Together, both challenges help Veronika embrace the authenticity she seeks.