Sacrificing One’s Self to a Murderous Crime “He knew he was an intruder. He held tight his position until his first attack.” Who is he? How many he’s are introduced in this statement? “All about Suicide” by Luisa Valenzuela challenges its readers to abandon the idea that he refers to only one person in any one sentence. This then presents the opportunity for the reader to take a deeper close reading of the short story to determine the author’s intent. The title of the short story is “All about Suicide. As a title’s duty is to be a precursor as to what lies ahead in the story, one would assume that the story will be one in which a suicide will occur. The author fulfills the title’s duty in the very first line of the story as it begins, “Ismael grabbed the gun and slowly rubbed it across his face. Then he pulled the trigger and there was a shot.” On the surface, the title of the story seems to correlate with the theme of the story that is carried throughout. However, looking more closely at the words that the author chooses, it becomes apparent the author may have chosen the title to confuse the readers.
Instead of an apparent suicide, the author has told the story of a murder. The author, Valenzuela, uses the word he to allow the reader to interpret it as either the character Ismael or the minister. If the reader assumes that he is always referring to Ismael, then the story is one of suicide. If the reader allows he to be used interchangeably between Ismael and the minister, then the story is one of a perfectly planned murder. When the author states, “First he grabbed the revolver . . . put it to his temple, and pulled the trigger. In one sentence, he being Ismael, grabbed the gun and put it to his, the minister’s, temple creating a murder and not a suicide. Once a reader has accepted that the minister is the one who is actually being killed, deeper evidence can be found to affirm this interpretation. The first indication that the minister is being victimized, is the setting in which the “suicide” takes place.
Valenzuela sets the character Ismael in an office and says of it, “ . . . the office is grand, fit for a minister. The desk is ministerial too.” Perhaps this is because Ismael is actually in the minister’s office. Later in the story the author gives some history to the action that Ismael decided to take, “. . . thinking over his future act and its possible consequences.” Usually in a suicide case, the suicidal person rarely will think of the consequences their actions will have because they will no longer exist to have any consequence at all. However, a person who is planning an act of murder will be surely be considering the consequences of his actions.
Further history shows motive for Ismael’s decision to murder the minister when the story reveals, “Ismael in the first grade fighting with a classmate who’ll one day become a minister, his friend, a traitor.” The final evidence that Ismael had committed a crime of murder rather than suicide is at the end of the story when it says, “Bang. Dead. And Ismael coming out of his office (the other man’s office, the minister’s) almost relieved, even though he can predict what awaits him.” Ismael is not dead. He awaits the punishment he will receive for murdering the minister in whose office he committed the crime in.
Luisa Valenzuela provides a word play for readers in her short story “All about Suicide” that allows for close interpretation of the story’s actual events. The story could easily be argued that Ismael actually did commit suicide and evidence can be provided to justify this interpretation. Looking further into the author’s choice of words used that relate to Christianity would lead a reader to a more accurate interpretation. The seven deadly sins could relate to the “. . . seven steps to his desk” and open up a whole new realm of interpretation.
