Bored To Death: The Concept Of Ennui

Have you ever felt that you are not interested in your life anymore? Or anything that crosses your path? If so you could be deemed to be experiencing ennui. Which is a French word, and its literal translation to English is “boredom.” Sometimes you may not even know what this feeling is at first, which makes it that much easier to get trapped into. Eventually individuals get stuck in the same old boring routine of their lives because that is all they know, and slowly begin to wither away. Ennui can be expressed in a number of ways, and these ways are shown throughout our sources, and in our real lives. I think ennui is an interesting concept, because I never really thought about there being extreme cases of boredom and I believe that feelings of ennui could eventually lead to things a lot worse. Ennui can be explained in many different ways, it was explained by Jeremy Bentham in the way that, “ennui expresses the species of uneasiness”.

When an individual does not know what is wrong with them and their mind is just constantly filled with emptiness. They want to feel excitement and pleasure in any way they can, but nothing in their life can give them the type of pleasure and satisfaction they seek. A meaningful quote was, “From the fatal hour in which he quitted business, however, he grew insensibly more and more the victim of listlessness and ennui”. So many individuals have set out in their lives to reach so many little goals to achieve, which will eventually help them achieve their one grand goal, whether that has to do with their career or personal life. Once that person has achieved the goal they have been working their entire lives for, they might not know what to do after because they have nothing left to work towards. These individuals still have so much potential but in them but since no satisfaction will compare to the one where they reached their ultimate goal, they start to feel lost, and unbothered by the things going on around them.

Lady Dedlock is a prime example of someone experiencing ennui. Throughout the novel she claims many times of how bored she is. She is bored of her lifestyle, the high fashion, and pretty much her entire existence. Her life is quite sad if you think about it, it is uninteresting, and nothing really important happens. It is just the same thing over and over and over again, on a repetitive cycle therefore it is completely understandable that she is bored. The quote, “Lady Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, drive, nothing is new to my Lady, under the worn-out heavens”. This shows that what others might find fascinating, and lucky to be doing, she could not care less about those things. She has done the same thing so many times, nothing interests her anymore, and her life has succumbed to nothing but getting through dull and lacklustre days.

One thing that may have sparked some interest in Lady Dedlock is when she recognized the hand writing of the court documents. This gave her something to work towards in trying to find out where the person who wrote the documents was. Extreme feelings of ennui can lead to conditions a lot worse. A significant quote was, “a mind completely vacant, if any such there be, is a mind in which there exists neither pleasure not pain, nor any expectation of either”. To me this meant that there is going to be an everlasting void in your mind. No matter what you try to fill it with whether it be something that causes you pain, or whether it be something that gives you pleasure, nothing is ever going to be enough, and eventually you are going to stop trying to feel anything. These feelings are very closely related to depression, which is very common and ennui can be an explanation to why these sort of things happen. A close friend of mine sadly suffers from depression, and these are thoughts that are constantly running through her head. Previously when she has discussed these things with me, she would always say that she just wants something to happen in her life that will make her feel anything, in even the slightest way possible. Some individuals cannot help but feel dissatisfied with their life. In some cases they can get help to make it better, but in others, they are just too far gone and it is a very unfortunate situation. Feelings of ennui are definitely experienced by a lot of people in the real world. At this point in my life, I am not too sure if I have felt extreme effects of ennui, but there was about three weeks during my summer, where all I did was work, gym, and sleep. I had got into such a tiresome cycle; I remember telling my friends how bored I was with my life. Prior to summer I was hanging out with my friends and family a lot more, but after I started working as much as I did, I would just be so tired that I would not put in the effort to see them. How I was feeling during this time was not too great. I then realized that it was my own decision to work as much as I did. If I wanted to stop this feeling of boredom, I would need to start working less and get myself out of this mindset, before things got worse.

My future goal is too become a Psychologist, and have a happy family. I wish to succeed in school so I am able to achieve these goals. However, I never really thought about what would happen once I have accomplished those goals. This is why the concept of ennui really intrigued me because, I would have invested so much of my time in getting myself where I wanted to be, how would I feel once all of that is over? This ties back into what Jeremy Bentham stated, “Engaged in an avocation, a man is engaged in that, whereby being called off from from everything, he is not left free to apply himself to anything”. This to me is expressing how an individual works so hard to give their life meaning, and when that meaning is either attained or it is taken away they are just lost souls in the world.

The saying, “bored to death,” was not really something that stood out to me very much because it was so commonly used in classrooms, work, home etc. Now when I hear it, after learning about the concept of ennui, is that essentially you could truly be, “bored to death.” Regardless of who you are, how much you have, or how little you have, you have the possibility of experiencing ennui. These ways are expressed by Jeremy Bentham, Lady Dedlock, and in our real world. Unfortunately, there are very few things to be done to prevent this feeling, because many individuals may not even know how to express what they are feeling, which eventually leads things to deteriorate. I believe that Individuals will always have to strive, and look forward to something, so they never feel that they have nothing left to do. Life is one long journey and there is always time to experience something new, no matter how big or small.