Another Sad Tragedy: “A Broken New Year's Vow”

        Under the newspaper section “Sad Domestic Tragedy” in The Illustrated Police News (IPN), highlights thirty-one-year-old Catherine Martha Nixon’s suicide. The title of the article, “A Broken New Year's Vow”, faults Catherine Martha Nixon and sympathizes her husband Walter William Nixon for the incident. On New Year’s Eve, Catherine Martha Nixon promised her husband that she will stop her drinking habit and in return, she was granted some money from him. However, her husband soon found her drinking and leaving their young children unfed. Angrily, he kicked her out of the house and so Catherine Martha Nixon ran toward the River Lea and eventually threw herself into the water. Her body was not found until a few hours later. 

        Before she threw herself into the river, she ran by her mother’s house and called out “Goodbye, father and mother!” To take this step to say goodbye to her parents, Catherine Martha Nixon appeared to be well aware of her own intention and action. She knew that her next move will take her life away from them forever. Yet, with a family and parents who she cared for, why did she commit such action; to take away a mother, a wife, and a daughter from those who she supposedly loved? Also, what in the first place caused her to become alcoholic? These questions are left unanswered.

        The IPN left just one story of Catherine Martha Nixon’s life with the public, her drinking behavior that led to her tragic suicide. 

        When her husband arrived by the river bank, he hoped to save her. The illustration from the IPN demonstrates the husband diving into the river toward her flowing body half under water.

        This image can be referred to the tragic tale of Ophelia from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While like the jury who blamed on the alcohol for Catherine Martha Nixon’s death, the character in Hamlet blamed the broken tree branch for Ophelia’s death. Yet, many would argue, Ophelia’s death was not an accident, it was a suicide. Playing a female role in the play, Ophelia was often constrained by the society and was often given limited options and choices to make. However, the tragic act of suicide is a decision that she finally got to make on her own, a decision that freed her from all the expectations that the society had of her as a woman. 

        Similarly, Catherine Martha Nixon was trapped and restricted being a woman during the 19th century. She had to live up to the society’s expectations of her being a housewife and so she had to depend on her husband for financial support. In result of that, she might have relied on alcohol as the only decision that she could have made on her own. That is until the society, which her husband is a part of, expected her to stop and go back to being a good housewife. She found no ways to escape and decided to drown herself as an unfortunate final decision that she got to make on her own. 

        This tragedy can also be compared to Tess from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles. In this image demonstrates a woman laying (in a rather similar position as the portrayal of  Catherine Martha Nixon and Ophelia in the other two images) while waiting for her arrest for killing a man who has exploited her. Instead of continuing to live in a society where her lover had abandoned her and could possibly abandon her again for her “sin” of being raped, she made her own decision. That decision is to be unconditionally in love for the last few days until she is found to be executed. All three of these heroines portrayed in the stories and in the pictures demonstrate a strength in the final stage of their lives. Although, the reader of this blog should be reminded that suicide is never encouraged, for all deaths leave pain for those who are still alive.

        Women, like Catherine, Ophelia, and Tess are often oppressed by the society. Even after her death, Catherine Martha Nixon continued to be oppressed because of her womanhood. In fact, after introducing Catherine Martha Nixon, her name never again appeared on the page. Throughout the rest of the article, Catherine Martha Nixon was only referred to by the reporter as “his wife,” then later on the “deceased”. Catherine Martha Nixon’s whole character and spirit died with Catherine Martha Nixon’s body. Her drinking and suicide was the only thing emphasized, and therefore the only thing that will be remembered. Her existence will not be that of Catherine Martha Nixon, but of Walter William Nixon’s deceased wife. Even her own young child will not remember her as a mother, but as an alcoholic who committed “suicide during temporary insanity brought on by drink.” Although her husband could have really loved her, it might not have been only love that she needed, but also the support for her to be an independent individual that she and many other women need from the society and their loved ones.