The Rationale of Suicide in Bartleby Essay

A Perfect Day for Bananafish follows the events leading up to the eventual suicide of Seymour Glass. In the story, Seymour is described as a lost spirit who sees himself as being fundamentally different from his social environment following his wartime experience; he leaves the war “seeing-more” and as a result, awakens to find that he has lost touch with the material world. Salinger uses the story’s dialog as the medium for conveying Seymour’s struggle; he establishes the shallow nature of the environment Seymour is exposed to using the dialog between Muriel and her Mother while simultaneously giving clues about Seymour’s character from the perspectives of the two women in his life. Seymour’s character is built upon further in the second

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess different sociological explanations of suicide. (21 marks)

Within this chapter of Kant, I was really interested in the idea of, “[Acting] as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature” (Kant 31). This has been one of the Kantian ideas that I have agreed with. It is basically saying, “Act how you want others to act” or even, “Lead by example”. As mentioned in another journal, this could either cause a lot of peace in the world or a lot of negativity and chaos. One example that Kant gives that could pose a problem with this idea is the idea of suicide. Kant believes that suicide is a way for someone to use themselves as a mean rather than an end (Kant 31). As mentioned earlier in previous chapters, Kant believed that humans should never act as means and only as

Suicide is, according to Sartre, “an opportunity to stake out our understanding of our essence as individuals in a godless world” (Stanford, 2004). Fundamentally, existentialism argues all individuals are free and therefore responsible for their actions. Thus, it is up to the individual to create an ethos of personal ideology, which is the only way one is able to rise above the human condition of suffering, death and finality (Guigon, 2001). Suicide is seen as the individual’s act of giving in to the absurdity of human life. In other words, when a human is unable to create meaning out of the absurdity that surrounds him or herself, her or she live the typical life of pain, suffering, death and thus make suicide a natural act of existence

According to National Institute of Mental Health, “In 2007, it [suicide] was the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 34,598 deaths.” This statistic shows that even though the numbers compared to the entire population are small, it is rather common for people to deal with suicide around them and it is a major issue among people (NIMH). There are many different mixed emotions and views regarding suicide. Some people choose to believe that it is a mental state that makes a person feels the need to commit suicide. Others believe that it directly defies our duties to God, ourselves, and even others in society. It is morally wrong to commit suicide? There is a fine line between

As he is confronted by the new tenants of Bartleby not leaving the premises of his former office, he tells these tenants that he is not responsible for Bartleby. He claims not to be responsible for Bartleby, but still goes back to convince Bartleby to leave, but he won’t. With that, the second tenant has Bartleby forcibly removed. The lawyer goes to visit Bartleby in jail and tries to make Bartleby feel better. However, one might wonder if this was him trying to present himself as a good character again. When finding Bartleby starved to death, he uses Bartleby’s last occupation in the the Dead Letters Office as a reason why Bartleby had a disorder. “Bartleby's disorder was brought about by his work sorting dead letters for the flames” (Wilson). This proves to be a convenient explanation of Bartleby’s disorder. This would also cause most readers and critics to want to analyze Bartleby more than the lawyer. The explanation does make sense, causing many to overlook the narrator’s ulterior motive: to convince himself that he wasn’t the root of Bartleby’s

Craig gets admitted into the hospital and calls his parents to tell them where he is. When Craig explains to his parents that he was suicidal they were hurt and broken. Knowing that their own child wanted to kill himself because he was depressed hurt them. Craig’s mom immediately begins to feel guilty, blaming herself for the situation. When Craig explains that he had called the suicide hotline and came to the hospital to check himself in, his mom says: “This is the bravest thing you’ve ever done”(pg.160). Knowing that her own son wanted to die hurt her a lot, but knowing that he was strong enough to be able to come to the hospital alone proved to her that she raised him the right way. Her initial reaction to Craig’s decision wasn’t disappointment

In Shakespeare's rendition of periodical Verona, feuds among houses can’t help but kindle and burn warm against the existence of Romeo and Juliet, fictional characters who are driven to suicide because their family never recognized their love as valid. These drastic lengths demonstrated in Shakespeare’s classic dramatic tragedy seem undoubtedly fictitious — but some may be surprised to realize that the restrictive elements that had once driven Romeo and Juliet to suicide mirror the present day conflicts that are riddled within the LGBT community’s everyday experiences. Shakespeare’s tragic portrayal of lovers who are chained by their family’s enmity and restrictive beliefs is parallel to the modern-day conflicts the LGBT community

Looking at it from a different angle, Bartleby can be expressed as a metaphor. Bartleby’s actions and his famous words, “I prefer not to”, evokes the idea that sometimes assertion is necessary; that saying “no” is always a possible option. The first time Bartleby turned down a request—the narrator asked him to examine his own work. A possible explanation for this was that perhaps Bartleby was acting on his own defense; that perhaps he knew he was illiterate; ashamed that he wouldn’t be able to carry out the task. Although he knew how to write, he

“Have you thought about physician assistance with suicide, Mrs. Ramsey? It is legal here in California,” Doctor Oobleck asked. “You’re husband has injuries that are far too severe for modern surgeries and natural recovery.”

Durkheim did not feel satisfied with individualized explanations for suicide such as alcoholism or depression. He felt there needed to be a stronger explanation and sought to explain how suicide was truly brought about through social forces. He constructed a coordinate system that contained social integration (how well you are connected with society) on the y-axis, and social regulation (what you expect daily from the world) on the x-axis. You need to maintain a position somewhere near the middle of the two to have a low risk for suicide. This graph led him to four different types of suicide. Egoistic suicide occurs when an individual is not very connected to society. Altruistic suicide is the opposite, where an individual is too integrated.

I think that the correct way to look at this argument would be to say that not everyone will attain their desires, but everyone has the opportunity and the decision to pursue it. For most people, they are always miserable because they never did what they wanted to in life. You’ll see some parents try and even live out their own childhood fantasies throughout their own children, but then that’s taking away from what your child really wants to accomplish in life. I’m sure the parents in this situation feel that seeing their own dream lived out by their child will give them pleasure and satisfaction, but the truth is that the parent already missed their opportunity and they are now destroying someone else chances.

In a sardonic black comedy, The Fleeting Little Life of Peter Wright takes a deathly serious issue and uses it to make some humorous commentary on life.

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of deaths in the world. It can happen to or be committed by anyone but usually occurs when a person feels depressed or worthless or is facing an exorbitant amount of problems. Fatal suicidal attempts are usually overestimated, because in most cases suicide attempts do not result in death or serious injury. In most cases suicide attempts result in failure or minor injury. Which means that failed or not resulting in death suicide attempts are recorded in the deaths by suicide statistics. Suicides are still very common, they occur about once every 40 seconds in the world. When dealing with suicide you must know its statistics, its causes, and its prevention.

Camus states that the world is a silent one, but we have two choices in this world. "Yet we have a choice suicide or just to be happy (Roca and Schuh 228)." Camus states that he chooses happiness in this lonely world, and that choice is one that we ourselves can only make, no one for us.