Like a Candle in the Wind: The Death of Marilyn Monroe

In Mr. Lewenstein's class, I'm researching the death of Marilyn Monroe for my "Back to the Future" sixties essay.  Below, I share the summary of a chapter I read in the book Tortured Artists.  We'll never know how things really ended.  The chief suspects for her murder were soon dead themselves.  Goodbye Norma Jeane... 

And it seems to me you lived your life / Like a candle in the wind

In Tortured Artists, we learn the sordid details of Marilyn Monroe’s untimely death.  When she first began living the life a Hollywood legend, she of all people probably knew she would soon become a dead one.   As a famous star, Marilyn lived her life under enormous scrutiny and criticism.  Drugs became an avenue of escape.  

Sadly, she already had a history of mental illness in her family.  The combination of  pressure,  drugs, and  anxiety took her down a dark road for which there was no return.   For example, at the age of four, Marilyn’s mother was placed in an asylum.  Marilyn grew up in an orphanage.  Later she found out her own grandmother had committed suicide.  She must have thought mental illness ran in her genes.  At age thirty six, when she felt herself losing her looks, she intensified her drug use.

   She didn’t know who she was anymore. She didn’t know if she was Norma Jean or Marilyn.  The writer makes little comment about Marilyn’s suicide or murder.  Instead, the writing reinforces the image of Marilyn’s living a life underneath a microscope.  What may have pushed Marilyn to her death just may have been us – a public that didn’t want to see her grow old.