Suicide or Not?
When Ada put her foot into the rope connected to the piano going overboard into the ocean, was she trying to kill herself or was it an accident?
shareWas wondering that myself - did she accidentally or deliberately step there?
I've decided that it was initially a suicide but on her way down she changed her mind. I figure if it was an accident, she would have immediately started to struggle and try to free herself. Instead, she waited a bit and only then did she kick off her shoe.
It was a deliberate act of suicide. Remember, the whole point of the film is that she is one with her piano because it is the only voice she has. This is the crisis moment of the film, the climax, the decision she makes -- her will chooses to sever her from the piano and go back up to the surface to live, almost like removing the umbilical cord from a newborn who is now free to live.
The scene is the very definition of rebirth, and probably my favorite example out of any book or movie.
But she asked Baines to throw the piano overboard. I think your explanation would be true if someone else took her piano away by force.
shareHer piano was definitely 'taken away.' The second that Alistair slammed an axe into it it became spoiled, as her daughter described. The Maori man also calls it a coffin and tells Baine to let the sea bury it. It became a souvenir of Ada's trauma incited by a man she absolutely detested. She wanted it thrown overboard, but at the same time she knows this part of her, so she calmy puts her foot into the loop and accepts what is about to happen.
Kind of aggravating and selfish given that she has a freaking little daughter. That's the one thing about the film that really pisses me off.
It is a metaphor. Ada herself is spoiled and was also be to given a sea burial. She knew that, even if the men did not.
share