The Sword Did It : A Greek Explanation For Suicide

To be, or not to be, is Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy and arguable the most famous soliloquy ever written. The passage provides readers with an understanding of Hamlets personal fight with suicide. Here Hamlet weighs the positive and negative effects of committing suicide. Although Shakespeare inserted the passage to explain Hamlet’s thoughts it also has significance to the target audience of the Elizabethan/Jacobean Era. As through the passage Shakespeare discusses the controversial action of suicide. In the 17th Century society cared about the honour and respect of their family name. If one was to commit the sinful action of suicide they would be seen as dishonourable. Therefore suicide victims were not provided respectful burials and

"Suicide, what a terrible concept. There are two types of suicide: physical, and theoretical. Physical suicide is the more commonly heard type of suicide. It entails the person actually, physically killing himself or herself. On the other hand, theoretical suicide is when the person does something that will, in turn, get him or her killed. For example, in “All About Suicide” by Luisa Valenzuela, Ismael, a man that works at a minister’s office, murders the minister, a high-ranking public official. Ismael has been forced to be quiet by the government; therefore he lashes out by killing the minister so that he can reveal the truth about the government. In doing this, Ismael technically “kills himself” because he knows the government

Suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life and sociologists over the years have tried to put forward various explanations for why someone may do this. Within sociology there are many different views on suicide on the causes and explanations for it, these come from two main methodologies which are Positivists who believe that sociology is a science and they should aim to make causal laws on suicide rates, compared to Interpretivists who believe that they should look for meaning behind occurrences and certain individuals experiences before the suicide. Other perspectives also put in their views on what they believe to

Roman suicide in the ancient culture of Rome is athe topic of iInterest. This interested me because it seems like a topic that wasn't very spoken of, in class. We start in ancient Rome this is a very common occurrence throughout the start of Rome's history itself. It is spoken of and many books that suicide was not frowned upon within the society, or of worshiped appraised. In this essay I'm going to bringing talk about the reason suicide occurred in the ancient city of Rome, or why it was not frowned upon in this Society, finally I'll talk about what was its main purpose at this time.

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

People commit suicide on a daily basis, not only in the United States of America, but all over the entire world. Dying by suicide or losing someone from suicide can be incredibly traumatic for families, loved ones, and the victim. Also, dying from suicide by hanging, shooting, or harming oneself is not the utmost, moral, or ethical way to die, due to the physical pain. Furthermore, there are a

      First some terms require clarification. Suicide is considered the intentional killing of one's self. Homicide is determined to be the intentional killing of one person by another (Savulescu, 1978, p. 31). Euthanasia (Greek: good death) is the

Suicide is defined as taking one’s life for the sake of oneself. Killing oneself, does not necessarily mean suicide because suicide is inherently selfish and completely focused on the individual. The reason for killing oneself changes whether it is suicide or not. Suicide has a very negative

Fate and free will played major parts in creating the characters and stories in many of the Greek mythologies and tragedies. The Greeks believes that the Gods and the Oracle's could predict a person's fate before or after birth, and that no one, even the Gods could intervene in that person's fate. They also believed that a person's or God could not create their own fate. This belief stems from the three fates: sisters, The Moirai or Fates were three sister deities, incarnations of destiny and life. Because of these three old women, fate could not be avoided or altered. As such with these stories, in the Iliad fate leads Achilles down his path of glory and his early demise, and cause Oedipus to sleep with his own mother and kill his father. Free will is the power of acting without constraint and fate; acting by one's own decisions. Even though Achilleus and Oedipus have fate, they both also have free will. For instance, Achilles has a double fate: if he goes home, he will live long without glory or if he stays at Troy, he will have lots of glory, but a short life. As such, in Sophocles Oedipus the King, when Oedipus was born he was fated to kill his father and lay with his mother, thought his ability of free will caused his fate to come true.

Suicide is the demonstration of deliberately consummation one's own particular life. The way societies view suicide differs generally as indicated by culture and religion. For instance, numerous Western societies, and in addition standard Judaism, Islam, and Christianity tend to view killing oneself as entirely negative (Edwards-Dryden, 2016). One myth about suicide that might be the consequence of this perspective is thinking about suicide (self-destructive ideation) to dependably be the aftereffect of a dysfunctional behavior. A few societies additionally regard a suicide endeavor as though it were a crime. Be that as it may, suicides are once in a while seen as justifiable or even good in specific circumstances, such as, in protest in persecution (for example, a hunger strike), as part of battle or resistance (for

During the era that Julius Caesar was set in, suicide was not quite illegal or seen as immoral in specific situations. Of course it was frowned upon by the government if you did not have a valid reason to take your life, but if your request for suicide was approved, it was technically legal. Illegal suicides were viewed as dishonorable and would bring shame to your family. These illegal suicides were often the suicides of slaves that were not permitted to harm themselves. Suicide was supposed to be a last resort to losing a battle but the honorable choice would’ve been to get executed. Either way you ended up dead, but harming oneself was considered to be shameful in most cases.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, suicide is treated differently on the aspects of religion, morals, and philosophical views. Suicide is the act of deliberately killing yourself in contrary to your own best interests. In today’s society suicide is highly looked down upon. But Shakespeare used suicide and violence in almost all of his most popular plays. Many of his tragedies used the element of suicide, some accomplished, others merely contemplated. Shakespeare used suicide as a dramatic device. A character’s suicide could promote a wide range of emotions: horror, condemnation to pity, and even respect. Some of his suicides could even take titles like the noble soldier, the violated woman, and star-crossed lovers. In Othello, Othello see suicide as

The ancient Greeks even went as far as misrepresenting suicide data in order to demonstrate their belief than men were both physically and emotionally stronger than women. They put forth that more women committed suicide than men, which supports their belief that women are feebler and can’t handle the adversities of life like men.1 According to Hyginus in The Book of Fables, he recorded instances of 15 male suicides and 25 female suicides, implying females are more inclined to commit suicide.1 Much of the ancient Greek data is similar to this, but the Romans proved, through multiple nonbiased sources, the ancient Greeks were lying and skewed their data.1 According to the Romans, ancient Greek male suicides outnumbered female suicides by almost

Suicide is mainly frowned upon in the western world whereas in Japan suicide may be seen as something which is noble and required to protect honour which the continuation of life would invalidate. The passage of time has also seen the emergence and rejection of different attitudes. During the persecution of Christians in Rome it was perceived as acceptable that a Christian virgin should commit suicide rather than be deflowered, raped by a Roman soldier. The Romans and Greeks both had the opinion that suicide was a responsible socially acceptable and sometimes necessary course of action, Socrates drank hemlock in the company of his friends. In certain parts of rural India it is still permissible for the wife of a deceased man to commit suicide by throwing herself onto his funeral pyre.

Suicide does not show up in the Bible but there are a few cases of people who committed suicide like Judas. Scriptural writers neither denounce nor adulate those whom they recorded as having taken their own lives (Gearing et al. 2009). The perspective of suicide as a sin rules current Christian states of mind over the different denominations like Catholics, Baptists, and Protestants. The sin of suicide is likened with different types of taking life, for example, abortion and murder (Maris et al. 2000). When a person dies, he/she aces judgement by