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Sociological perspectives of suicide
Sociological questions on suicide
Sociological questions on suicide
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Recommended: Sociological perspectives of suicide
Suicide, originating from the Latin phrase sui cadere, “to kill oneself”, is one of the top leading causes of death worldwide. Every year, more than a million people commit suicide, successfully ending whatever feelings of despair, pressure, or suffering they felt when alive. Yet statistics show that the number of nonfatal suicide attempts exceeds that of actual completed suicides. Failed attempts of taking one’s own life reveal the deep, undermining uncertainties humans have about death. Such inquiries as to whether life or death is better stream into human perception. Fear of the unknown often paralyzes the courses of action one sets out to accomplish. Likewise, fear of death and the afterlife frequently results in people postponing death, allowing their misery and pain to continue. Death hovers in the minds of humans both consciously and unconsciously leading them to pursuit after the countless ambiguities and mysteries surrounding life, existence, and the world. So common are the thoughts and questions revolving around life and death that several writers infuse them heavily as themes in the plots of their literary works. One of the most prominent examples of the pondering of life versus death occurs in a soliloquy in Hamlet, where the crown prince of Denmark acknowledges the option of suicide to end his agony. Hamlet’s contemplation of pros and cons between life and death in Shakespeare’s highly acclaimed tragedy unveils to the reader profound insight on Hamlet’s character and personality, the links between thought and action, and the ambiguities of life.
After the death of his father, Hamlet falls into a state of depression. Mourning in bitter sorrow, Hamlet reacts negatively to the quick remarriage of his mother, the que...
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...many known historical figures including Mark Antony, Cleopatra of Egypt, Virginia Woolf, Adolf Hitler, Ernest Hemingway, and Vincent van Gogh have taken their own lives. Radical changes have occurred to shift and change not only people’s social and moral values, but political and religious values as well. As suicide to Christians was once looked down upon as a sin, the increased rate of suicide today, signifies a loss in strength of strict, persistent, and traditional ideology. More and more people wonder about the enigmas of existence, life, and death but fewer and fewer are willing to endure the sufferings in life to postpone the fear accompanying death.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 9th Ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print
To continue on the subject of suicide, I will bring in some information from my last source, “Shakespeare’s Hamlet 1.2.35-38,” by Kathryn Walls. (Gather information from source and relate to the book).
Shakespeare, William. The Tradegy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992
Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 9th Ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print
Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 9th Ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print
Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The. “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X. J. Kennedy, Dana. Gioia.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Literature. 5th ed. Ed. Robert Di Yanni. New York. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2002. 1395-1496.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2012. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The New Cambridge Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Philip Edwards. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1985.
Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Washington Square Press new Folger ed. New York: Washington Square, 2002. Print.
Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 9th Ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. 5th Compact ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 1010-1107. Print.
In his tragedy Hamlet, William Shakespeare explores and analyzes the concept of mortality and the inevitability of death through the development of Hamlet’s understanding and ideology regarding the purpose for living. Through Hamlet’s obsessive fascination in understanding the purpose for living and whether death is the answer, Shakespeare analyzes and interprets the meaning of different elements of mortality and death: The pain death causes to others, the fading of evidence of existence through death, and the reason for living. While due to the inevitable and unsolvable mystery of the uncertainty of death, as no being will ever empirically experience death and be able to tell the tale, Shakespeare offers an answer to the reason for living through an analysis of Hamlet’s development in understanding death.
In ancient history suicide was condemned to be a morally wrong sin. Plato claimed that suicide was shameful and its perpetrators should be buried in unmarked graves. When the Christian Prohibition came into play a man by the name of St. Thomas Aquinas defended the prohibition on three grounds. These are that suicide is contrary to natural self-love, whose aim is to preserve us. Suicide injures the community of which the individual is a part of. Suicide ...
Hamlet’s anger and grief- primarily stemming from his mother’s marriage to Claudius- brings him to thoughts of suicide, which only subside as a result of it being a mortal and religious sin. The fact that he wants to take his own life demonstrates a weakness in his character; a sense of cowarness, his decision not to kill himself because of religious beliefs shows that this weakness is balanced with some sense of morality. Such an obvious paradox is only one example of the inner conflict and turmoil that will eventually lead to Hamlet’s downfall.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.