The Suicide, By Octavia Butler

"More people in the general population die from suicide than homicide in North America. There are almost 11 suicide deaths each year for every 100,000 people living in the United States, and for every suicide, there are between 8 and 25 attempts" (Brent 4203). Based on this research, the great effect of suicide is displayed. According to dictionary.com, suicide can be defined as "the intentional taking of one's own life." Suicide is a major issue for all people, but it most obviously affects those ranging from ten to twenty-four. People need to understand the tremendous ramifications caused from suicide everyday; when people take their lives, others lose their loved ones. Suicide, one of the leading causes of death of numerous people each day, has reached a crisis point for adolescents and young adults, and it needs to be prevented.

Suicide is a severe community health matter which can have lifelong negative consequences on individuals, families, and the society. Reduce suicidal risk factors and increase protective measures are the main objective of suicide prevention. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defined suicide as the “death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with intent to die as a result of the behavior; suicide attempt is “A non-fatal, self-directed, potentially injurious behavior with an intent to die as a result of the behavior; might not result in injury’; and suicidal ideation is “thinking about, considering, or planning suicide” (2015).

Published June 1971,Octavia Butler’s science fiction narrative, Kindred, gives a glimpse into how life was for African Americans during slavery in the Antebellum South. Kindred serves as a time portal between the 1800s and the year 1976. As the main character Dana goes from an 1800’s plantation to her home in 1976 it is obvious that time period changed, however being that Dana is constantly back and forth between the two times, she is able to see exactly how drastic the change was and what liberties she took for granted by living in 1976.

There is at least 113 suicides each day or 1 every 13 minutes. Suicide among males is the seventh leading cause of death and the fourteenth leading cause in females. Most suicides are with a firearm and are carried out with a “ Saturday night special”. (Dilaura,Cynthia DiLaura) “More than 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal. “ (Brady Campaign) There are a number of reasons why suicide occurs. Stress is the number one cause among our youth, bullies, peer pressure, depression, and abuse. 41,100 people committed suicide in the United States in 2013. Our young teens today does not take time to look deeper into there problem and to seek out a better solution. They are looking for a quick fix but not realizing once the trigger is pulled the result is final with no turning back. Most people who has attempted suicide is more likely to try a second attempt and most have an underlying mental illness. There is many warming that someone may be in a suicide crisis. We most learn how to see things through their eyes. No matter what one is facing in life or the difficult that lie ahead of them Nothing is worth taken your own

As one may expect, suicide is a huge problem in this country. Many people are trainied to be sucide bombers. However, there are those that commit suicide for other reasons such as not being able to take their way of living anymore, some women take their own lives due to not being able to handle being married to abusive drug addicted husbands. Men take their own lives simply due to not wanting to go on anymore.

Suicide is is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors include mental illness such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, alcoholism, or drug abuse. People choose suicide when they are hopeless or when they think there isn’t anyone that cares for them anymore. They can also choose this if they think there isn’t an end to their suffering or to their problem. Most of the time this happens because of depression and in some cases bullying, it can also happen because of alcohol or because of a major stressful event that has happened. Suicide can really happen anywhere and at any time.Suicide is a problem that exists because the numbers of suicide keep going up and won’t come down.

The first sociologist to research into suicide was Ėmile Durkheim; he “wished to show that sociological factors were ‘capable of explaining much about such anti-social phenomena’” (Gingrich). Durkheim’s research allowed for him to understand how society connected to the rates of suicide and, more detailed, the importance of social integration on the rates of suicide across the country. He found a correlation between the rates of suicide and the seasons because the amount of social interactions increased as the seasons became longer and people were more likely to interact with the more accommodating temperatures (Gingrich). His views on suicide can all relate back to the degree to which society plays a role in one’s life due to the amount of interactions one has with society and the regulations that society imposes on the individual (Gingrich). Along with this view Durkheim also created four different reasons for committing suicide. The first type of suicide is egoistic suicide is when social integration in very limited, and people have the feeling of being normless. Next is altruistic suicide where societal pressures were too great and where suicide is forced upon a person, like the ritual suicides found in Japan that will be discussed later in this text. Anomic suicide is when there is a change in society, and the norms and

The act of killing yourself, most often as a result of depression or other mental illness (Fox, 2013). In the United States, more than two percents of deaths are due to suicide. The highest rate is for men over the age of sixty nine, but is increasing everyday in young people of the ages fifteen to twenty four. One million people commit suicide worldwide annually, and ten million to twenty million people attempt suicide annually. There are roughly about thirty thousand people that kill themselves every year just in the United States. The actual number could be higher because some deaths are recorded as an accident, single car accident, or something that isn’t even recognized as a suicide. In men it is the eighth leading cause of death and in women it is the sixteenth leading cause of death. The higher frequency of completed suicides in males versus females is consistent across the life span. Teenage at the ages of fifteen to nineteen years old will commit suicide five as often as females their age. Men at the ages of twenty to twenty four years of age will commit suicide ten times more often as women. The rate for gay and lesbian individuals is much higher at them attempting suicide.

Suicide is something that has been a plague on society for some time now, and a tragic plague at that. To the normal man or woman, suicide is a horrific act. However, to many men and women thinking irrationally, suicide is simply an easy way out. In this sense, suicide turns from a terrible act from the outside view, into an actual pain reliever to the suicide committer himself. Technically, one could argue that suicide is actually doing some good to the person who ends their life. James Boone, in his article in the Los Angeles Times, outlined the top three reasons that a conference at the Irvine Hilton came up with on why teen suicide occurs. The first was “Youths with low self-esteem,” the second was “Youths who are depressed,” and the third

The future is tough to predict. Parable of the Sower is a very well-written science fiction novel by Octavia Butler. The setting is California in the year 2025. The world is not prosperous anymore and has turned into a poverty stricken place. There are countless homeless people, jobs are scarce, and there are very few communities of homes. The few communities that are still occupied have huge walls with barbed wire and laser wire surrounding them. There are robberies, murders, and rapes just about every day. People walk the streets naked and bloody because their clothes were stolen or they could never find any. Some people live in the hills like animals. They kill anything that comes along, human or not, for food and to protect their territory. Some of these people are drug addicts who create fires for their own satisfaction. Everyone who has a chance to live must carry a gun so no one can harm or try to do anything to them. In this society the police do not help because you have to pay them to come to the scene of a crime. Most people cannot afford to pay their fees so they handle whatever they can on their own. The protagonist of this story, Lauren, decides to leave this society for something better an forms a spiritual group called “Earthseed.” The word “earthseed” is actually a metaphor.

However, I want to understand suicide more in a sociological perspective. I’ve only viewed suicide as an individual problem and never accounted other macro-level elements. Even, if we can pinpoint a source of the cause, we could consider outside factors that can threaten persons or groups of people’s mental well-being. Merriam-Webster defined suicide, “the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind.” (Merriam, 2016)

Over the last several years, the issue of suicide and how to prevent it has been continually brought to the forefront. This is because these numbers are high in many countries around the globe. The different figures are showing, how 877 thousand lives are lost to it worldwide every single year. These amounts will vary from one country to the next, with Europe and the United States reporting the highest levels. Most notably: 10% for every 100 thousand deaths (in Europe) and 11% (inside the US). While other areas, mainly Latin America and Muslim countries averaged 6.5%. (Mann, 2005)

Suicide is growing as one of the most common causes of death. Suicide is “a self-inflicted death in which the person acts intentionally, directly, and consciously” (Comer, 2009, p.209). There are many theories to what contributes to suicide and each model has its own view. The psychodynamic theorists believe that suicide stems from depression and self-loathing. They believe that victims will take their anger for others and place it on themselves. When a person is absorbed in that much anger and sadness then they will redirect their death instinct by placing it upon themselves. “Emile Durkheim’s sociocultural theory defines three categories of suicide based on the person’s relationship with society: egoistic, altruistic, and anomic suicides” (Comer, 2009, p.221). Egoistic suicides occur by people who are isolated and are not concerned with the norms of society. Altruistic suicides are committed by people who believe that are sacrificing themselves for a greater causes. This could be a person that lays on a grenade to save everyone, to a suicide bomber that kills others on the belief that they are preserving their honor. Anomic suicides are down by people that are let down by their society or religious group. The biological theory is that the activity of the

The amount of children, teens, and adults committing suicide and self-harming themselves is barbaric. The suicide rates increase every year due to other heartless people causing others to feel worthless, also stress and social media play a huge role in the action of self-harm. The book Thirteen reasons why by Jay Asher paints a perfect picture of how teens who suffer from depression and sever suicidal thoughts feel every day. The reasoning behind most suicidal actions are very unjust.

2008). According to most of the researchers who studied suicide, the assumption is totally wrong or unacceptable. Even though, the suicidal person might have own reasons to end their life, it is still unacceptable. Suicide is not acceptable because it is not the answer for all our problems. It is true that we live in a high pressure world, which sometimes forces us over the edge. Problems and sufferings are something common in our lives. All of us will face a difficult situation in our lives. In those situations, if everyone started to attempt suicide then there will be no one left in this word. Suicide is a tragic experience, not just for the victims, but for those they leave behind struggling to understand what went wrong and what they could have done to prevent it. As Edwin Shneidman points out in his Ten Commonalities of suicide, “The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution”. Thus, we should view problems as something can be solved. Moreover, through suicide we can’t actually solve a problem. We can just release our self or escape from the problem, but our loved will suffer later. Therefore, suicide is just a stupid decision that people make in their