Sethe's action is indisputable: She has killed her child. Sethe's motivation is not so clearly defined. By killing her "Beloved" child, has Sethe acted out of true love or selfish pride? The fact that Sethe's act is irrational can easily be decided upon. Does Sethe kill her baby girl because she wants to save the baby from slavery or does Sethe end her daughter's life because of a selfish refusal to reenter a life of slavery?
Most importantly, we also find out that she tried to commit suicide as a way to escape from her pain. She states that “[a]t twenty [she] tried to die/ [a]nd get back, back, back to [him]” (58-59). This shows the characters urge to escape from her feelings and, therefore, tried to commit suicide but didn’t succeed. Plath has portrayed death as an exit and a way to solve one 's problems by escaping rather than confronting them. Overall, both poems divulge death as a way to escape their problems.
With only her afterlife in mind, Antigone starts to become more and more of a martyr through her actions. One of those actions was burying her disgraced brother and accepting the consequence of death. The most prominent martyr-like action was her decision to hang herself in the cave, showing that she would not bend to Creon’s will (her eventual starvation). Antigone committed suicide in The Burial at Thebes because she cared more about her life after death and pleasing the gods than she did her mortal life and pleasing the
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory which endorses that an action is morally acceptable if it has the right kind of outcome or consequence. The intent of an action or the reasoning behind it is disregarded in utilitarianism. Happiness is simply quantified in terms of the satisfaction of a majority, independent of the beliefs of the majority or their intentions. ... ... middle of paper ... ...ism and have given a detailed argument that holds the innocent bystander objection valid against any form of utilitarianism. Through detailed examples illustrated in this essay, the readers can get a clear understanding of how a utilitarian might react in sacrificial scenarios.
As stated, Mill believes that an action is right if it promotes happiness and an action is wrong if it promotes pain. Second, the principle of utility does not focus on an individual’s happiness but it focuses on the overall happiness. As stated, “first laws of social arrangement should place the happiness or the interest of every individual as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole” (Utilitarianism, 17). The principle takes into consideration the happiness of others and does not allow you to only think of yourself, this incorporates the idea of equal treatment to the principle. Another element to the utility principle is consequentialism, which is defined, as what makes an... ... middle of paper ... ...le of utility, helping the family would promote the most happiness because it’s a greater number compared to only one person.
Thus, she chooses to use Clarissa Dalloway to represent the life she aspires to have, and chooses that Septimus instead be the misunderstood genius who sacrifices his life. Ironically, both characters represent her inner conflict, and unable to resolve that conflict, she does indeed commit suicide to relieve both herself and her husband. Laura, Clarissa, and Richard each struggle in some way to cope with their mundane existences. Death, both in a literal and metaphorical sense, becomes their method for liberating themselves from such a life. They hope that this death will either bring new life to them or to the people they love most dearly.
Her apparent suicide denotes a desire to take control of her life for once. Ophelia’s death is, arguably, an honorable one, characterized by her willingness to let go of her submissive, earth-bound self and leave the world no longer a victim. Ophelia’s accidental drowning shows her as a victim of circumstance among people who seek to assert dominance over her. Mimicking Laertes’ advice to Ophelia, Polonius, in a condescending tone, chastises his daughter and forbids her from associating with Hamlet: POLONIUS. Think yourself a baby That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay, Which are not sterling.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life: Regression, Desire, and Tripartite model of the Psyche in William Shakespeare Hamlet Left for dead, the merciless notion to try and revive an individual from dying is nearly impossible. However, the aftermath of a death causes individuals affected by the loss to churn their emotions to seek closure in a way that can be negative or positive outcome. William Shakespeare in the 1603 play Hamlet uses the psychoanalytic principles of the Tripartite Model of the Psyche, desire, and repression to portray how death can cause grief into madness. Experiencing the death of an individual results in regression to find closure or revenge of an emotional wound. Characters in the play Hamlet suffer from
The guilt is consuming her conscience when she is vulnerable the most (when she is asleep). Being more “masculine” allows her to kill Duncan. However, she is still a woman and cannot deal with the guilt that comes with murder, which ultimately drives her crazy. In contrast, Macbeth shows no such guilt, as he is preoccupied with consolidating his power. After Macbeth is killed in battle, Malcolm comments on Lady Macbeth that “who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands, took off her life” (5.
From the general societal viewpoint, the former represents the attitudes which should be admired, rewarded and emulated, while the latter represents the attitudes which should be abhorred, punished and discouraged. Now philosophers, not being satisfied with leaving things well enough alone, endeavour to discover why this is so. Why do we admire acts of kindness? Why do we loathe acts of malice? It is generally thought that the crux of this question of morality has to do with the magnitude of selfishness accounted for in the acts and thoughts of individuals.