I took it to be loneliness of the prairie combined with his older brother's harsh treatment. Emile got out, but Freddy got left behind, even though he also was sensitive and academic and a gifted writer.
It was all just too much for him, being a sensitive artist type and consigned to a life of drudgery on farm.
Emile sort of explains Freddy's motivations as the suicide is happening, because as we see him in the cab of the truck coughing, the voiceover is of Emile talking to Maria explaining how hard life was on the prairie and how crushing the lonlieness can be for some people---he usess the term lonely several times.
Then it switches to Freddy in the truck coughing. And right before that Freddy was out all alone crouching in the endless field among the crops scribbling manically in his journal where he puts all his thoughts down, because he hasn't got anybody at all in his life to share his thoughts with in person.
Also, we know Freddy's been cut off from his only true friend (Emile) from all the letters Freddy writes to brother Emile over the years, that are never answered. Emile is the only person in the family Freddy had some sympatico with--and now he's gone and Freddy is pouring his feelings out to Emile in letters and is being ignored.
So the existential and daily lonliness of Freddy just did him in in the end. He broke.
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