Why did she jump from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building 74 years ago?
When it comes to fear of marriage, many young people must have a stomach full of bitter water.
With the development of society and the transformation of ideological concepts, the meaning of marriage is also different.
Previously, two people could come together for a reason;
Now, two people will have countless reasons why they can't be together.
The most disturbing of these is the struggle and fear that comes from one's own heart.
This fear also happened to a 24-year-old American woman 74 years ago.
She shocked and caused a sensation in a surprising way.
01
Death is unimaginably desperate for many people, but it has more calmness in her.
In 1947, an American woman jumped from a height of 300 meters on the occasion of her new marriage, ending her life.
Coincidentally, the scene of the fall was taken by Robert E. Lee, who was filming the scenery. C. Wiles snapped it.
I saw her feet crossed and flat, her white gloved left hand clutching the white pearl necklace, and her right hand naturally placed on the other side.
In that instant, the expression was calm and fearless, like a very elegant sleeping beauty.
The car, which had been deformed by the pressure, contrasted sharply with her calm body.
This leap, it seemed, was a relief to her.
As a result, she was also rated as a falling angel by the world.
▲ The moment of the fall captured by the photographer
The photo soon appeared in the New York Times, became a hit, and created a legend in the American photography world.
People wonder, who is this woman? What kind of struggles and twists and turns did she go through before choosing to live lightly?
It turned out that the girl' name was Evelyn McHale, who was only 24 years old at the time and came from an ordinary family in California.
Evelyn was the seventh child in the family, and the youngest of her did not receive the pampering she deserved.
Because the family is too populated, parents often argue over the need to support the family.
▲ Evelyn and her brother
Later, the family moved to Washington, D.C., but a constant quarrel ensued, so much so that their parents eventually divorced.
At a young age, she eventually lived with her father, but she also had to work various part-time jobs while studying to bear the pressure from the family.
At an age when she was supposed to be happy and happy, Evelyn was doubly stressed.
▲ Evelyn and her nephew in 1945
The misfortune of her original family deeply affected her, making her sensitive and inferior, perhaps this also sowed the seeds of tragedy for her subsequent misfortunes.
Later, she left California and found a job at a bank in New York, and it was this opportunity that she met the love of her life, Barry.
After the two fell more and more in love with each other and their relationship was gradually stabilized, they also decided to marry in June 1947.
02
On April 30, 1947, Evelyn took a train to visit her fiancé, returning to New York the next morning and buying a ticket to the Astronomical Observatory on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building.
She was dressed neatly, with exquisite makeup and an engagement ring from her fiancé on her hand.
When taking the elevator to the astronomical observation deck, the grooming instrument was also deliberately arranged.
Without warning, Evelyn committed suicide by jumping off a building.
It is said that when Evelyn fell, a security guard stood less than half a meter away from her, but the incident happened so suddenly that the security guard did not react to her and fell.
▲ Astronomical observation deck at the time of the fall
Unexpectedly, she already had happiness, but she personally created her own tragedy.
Perhaps in her opinion, all the beauty of this world no longer belongs to her, and for her, the end is the best destination.
Barry, who had just celebrated his fiancée's birthday, could not have imagined that he would never have said goodbye to her.
After learning of his girlfriend's death, Barry later choked up and recalled:
"On the day of the separation I kissed her cheek as usual, and she was as happy as ever..."
Later, the police and detectives quickly intervened in the matter, and detectives found her already written suicide note in her wallet.
▲ The police removed her body
She wrote in the first half of her suicide note:
He hoped that after his death, no one would see any information about himself, and he also asked for her body to be destroyed with cremation, and asked his family not to hold funerals and commemorations for himself.
The second half also reads:
The fiancé hopes to marry him in June, but he feels that he cannot be a good wife, and without her, maybe the fiancé will be better off.
It was this eternal moment that has shocked countless people since it was taken in 1947.
In May 1947, Time magazine published a photo of Evelyn's fall, and even described her as "the most beautiful suicide".
Many people say that there is no fear of death in this photo, and some of it is the tranquility after people have passed away.
It is precisely because of this photo that it has also activated the creative inspiration of many writers, which once triggered a worldwide topic.
Maybe she was afraid that she would end up with the same miserable end as her mother, and she knew she couldn't accept it.
Maybe she just came from fear of her lover and marriage.
In the end, the deep struggle in the heart finally turned into a dream and completed a grand death.
Lu Xun once said: Tragedy destroys the valuable things in life for people to see, and comedy tears apart the worthless things for people to see.
When people learn more and more about Evelyn's tragedy, they will still be incredulous, and they will feel inexplicable shock and awe.
<h1>3</h1>
As society developed, Evelyn-style tragedies did not stop.
Looking at the present, the word "fear of marriage" still appears repeatedly in major news.
<h1>"Fear of marriage" is gradually spreading into a disease of this era. </h1>
Previously, there were bloggers on the B station who interviewed many people with marital phobia:
Someone said, "The influence of the original family will make you see more negative things." ”
At the end of the day, because it feels more and more strange to marriage, there is a sense of fear.
According to the 2019 White-Collar Life Survey Report, there are 240 million single people in China.
Among them, nearly 40% of white-collar workers are unmarried and single.
But women are afraid of marriage, are they afraid of marriage? What is the truth about women's fear of marriage?
Perhaps it is our realization that love is not as perfect as we think, and that the overwhelm caused by psychological gaps is often accompanied.
There may be shackles attached to his marriage.
Because for young people, getting married also means facing more practical problems: taking care of both parents, cleaning the house, cooking with children, and mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships.
China's marriage-phobic population is growing stronger, and this situation is the same as in South Korea.
Han Zong's "We Are Divorced" is known as a Korean marriage-phobic and child-fear textbook.
The program team invited three divorced couples and asked the two who had been in love to live together for 3 days and 2 nights.
Among them, the most controversial are Xian Yu Yinshu and Li Yinghe.
Xian Yu Yinshu had dissatisfaction and grievances against Li Yinghe in her heart, and longed for a "sorry".
But Li Yinghe brought her only a long silence.
When Xian Yu Yinshu asked Li Yinghe, "Don't you think time is a pity?" Li Yinghe only said one sentence: "I haven't even drunk a cup of coffee, is it okay to talk like this?" ”
One is grumpy, time has passed, and there is still resentment and love in his heart, while the other has long been looked down upon, leaving only perfunctory and indifferent.
No matter how cleverly arranged, such two people are destined not to grow old, they did not, and they still will not.
So for many young Koreans, the end of marriage is mostly bleak.
Instead of spending a short life in mutual torture and attrition, it is better to be loyal to yourself.
There are phenomena that show that the non-marriage movement in South Korea has become a new trend among young women.
Two representatives of the unmarried movement have told the reasons for the fear of marriage, and they have no choice but to say that they do not want to get married because of their low status in the family.
A generation has a generation of living methods, but it is undeniable that in the interconnection and continuation, the influence between each other has never changed.
Like Evelyn, even if she loves her husband deeply, her life ended in tragedy because she witnessed the misfortune of her mother's marriage since she was a child.
4
Love is destroyed by the ordinary, and passion is destroyed by triviality.
Truly long-term feelings need to be managed with heart, and the person who accompanies you for life, both of them must support each other's lives until they become a spiritual pillar in their hearts.
When you have not met the right person, the most important thing for people who are afraid of marriage is to become stronger, and only in this way can you resist the erosion of all fear.
But if you have taken the person who has been with you for the rest of your life, please also hold each other's hands and bravely move forward.
"The Island Bookstore" has such a sentence: "Come, dear, and let us fall in love with each other, and come to you and me, still alive."
In fact, the beauty in front of us has always been there, but often some people choose to accept it, and some people flee.
There is no right or wrong outside of choice.
Just as there are more and more single young people who are full of anxious dreams, they use all their time desperately to seek development, rather than starting a life that belongs to two people.
Sometimes it seems easier to escape.
At the fork in the road of fate, there is always more than one way, but the ending is the same.
That is, let yourself have enough courage to walk in the world, live calmly and happily.
Compared with the elegance of Evelyn jumping down and falling on the car, truly living gracefully is the whole meaning of life. Text/Shag