The Symbolism Of Cigarette In A Picture Of Dorian Gray

According to “The Action of Smoking and Health,” every six seconds someone loses their life as a result of a tobacco related disease. It’s hard to realize how damaging cigarette smoking’s effect can be until you experience it first hand. It is almost certain that every one knows someone who is currently a smoker or was a smoker at some point in their life. For years smoking was the seen as the “cool” thing to do, it was how to “fit in.” There was no real emphasis placed on the dangers of this particular habit, and as a result, it became a world wide trend. In the past, technology and medicine were not nearly advanced enough to be able to determine just how harmful tobacco usage is. However, as we have made medical and

According to Stephen King, cigarettes and smoking symbolize temptation and regret. In the short story Stephen King writes, "He looked atbthem for a moment then snatched one and lit it with the dashboard lighter." Morrison listened to his temptation and lit his cigarette. "It taste awful...", said Morrison. Morrison thought it tasted disgusting because he felt guilty and he regreted it right after.

In the short story of “Letting go” David Sedaris speaks about his addiction to smoking cigarettes. He mentions where it all started in the beginning of the story by him visiting the American tobacco plant near Durham, North Carolina near his hometown. There he learned how cigarettes were made and was also given a free pack to bring to his parents. During when he went to school smoking was permitted almost everywhere from schools in classrooms to hospitals in front of patients, he mentions how he remembered seeing ashtrays in grocery stores and in movie theatres which made him want to do the opposite of smoking.

This essay will consider how each of the 5 psychological perspectives explain smoking. I will cover the psychodynamic, the behaviouristic, the biological, the cognitive and the humanistic approach.

One anti-smoking poster shows merely a pair of hands holding a revolver. Instead of bullets the hands are using cigarettes to load the weapon. Listed in small print on one side of the poster are numerous conditions that may be related to smoking, such as fatal heart attacks, emphysema, cancer, and gum disease. The phrase “Smoking kills… so why bother starting” is printed in large font at the bottom of the poster. The message of this poster is clear: Don’t Smoke. The poster is trying to portray that smoking is like holding a loaded weapon. Just as someone would be endangering their life with the loaded gun, they would also be endangering their life with the use of cigarettes. The consequences and health issues associated with smoking can be just as deadly as those of the gun. Ultimately, if someone smokes they are putting their life at risk. Therefore, the logical act is to never start smoking.

Like alcohol, smoking most effective drop fulfilling after one receives custom to it. “If coffee makes a person wakeful, mentally alert, and at worst, nervous, the effect of tobacco was described from the very first by reference to calm, placidity, contemplation, concentration, etc.” (p. 107). Schivelbusch also writes of the approaches in which smoking was associated to worker’s rights and democracy actions in Germany. The primary and most unsparing confederacy in Germany changed into seemingly fashioned by way of the cigar rollers. “Thus, it was a curious twist in its symbolic history that the cigar should later have come to be a status symbol for capitalist entrepreneurs” (p. 129).

The essay “Thank You for Smoking,” written by Peter Brimelow, is far from an influential essay on why people should smoke. Through this essay, Brimelow makes an effort to convince the audience smoking is actually beneficial to your health. I find it hard for people to write about what they think are the benefits of smoking when there are so many obvious reasons why you should not smoke.

In “I’d Rather Smoke than Kiss,” the author Florence King expresses her disdain towards this new wave of hatred that has surged against smokers. King views these attacks on smokers as an outlet for Americans to demonstrate who they truly are without being judged. First of all, King labels all of those who hate smokers as “smokists” (Allyn and Bacon 315). Smokists hide behind this flourishing concept of “passive smoking” (315) in order to freely express their intolerance towards smokers without any obvious repercussions. Smokists do not care for what smokers might think they just seek their own well being, thus King views them as practitioners of a “sadistic brutality” (316). This group of misanthropes portrays smokers as uneducated and disgusting individuals that only inspire the vilest of emotions from the rest of the superior Americans. Therefore, many of the smokist’s campaigns only inspire that.

Smoking. A controversial, mindless activity to do in our health-conscious society today. We judge the loner and their values as we walk past them, sitting outside the restaurant to have a ‘quick fag’ whilst their friends continue to enjoy one another’s company inside the safety walls of the ‘smoke-free zone’. It’s known as an addiction. Or is it a disease? A deadly addiction, perhaps? A loss of self-respect, one’s values, responsibility. A disgusting and immature habit, only conducted by those who we think lesser of. Why can’t they control themselves? What is seriously so great about the taste, the smell, the feel, of the silent and patient killer that is tobacco?

People that smoke are the people that get all the unhealthy stuff in a body like cancer and many diseases that can be caused.“If smoking persists at the current rate among young adults in this country, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 years of age are projected to die prematurely from a smoking-related illness. Another 100,000 were babies who died of sudden infant death syndrome (often referred to as SIDS) or complications from prematurity, low birth weight, or other conditions caused by parental smoking, particularly smoking by the mother. “Smoking has been around for a long time. The problem with smoking became worse when “production climbed markedly when another cigarette-making machine was developed in the 1880s by James Albert Bonsack, which vastly increased the productivity of cigarette companies, which went from making about 40,000 hand-rolled cigarettes daily to around 4 million.” Smoking is a problem around the world because it causes lung cancer, many other cancers, and some horrible diseases. This problem should be solved because “More than 10 times as many U.S. citizens have died prematurely from cigarette smoking than have died in all the wars fought by the United States during its history.”

Many drugs are used, misused, and abused in American society today. Some of these carry stigma in the general population, forcing users into an underground drug subculture. Others are accepted and almost promoted under certain circumstances. Tobacco is one of those drugs. Tobacco will be discussed in the context of cigarette smoking. This is not to undermine the existence or danger of other forms of tobacco, but instead to have an exhaustive discussion of cigarette smoking and its societal impact. Cigarettes are a means of inhaling tobacco, where it enters the lungs and is absorbed through the blood vessels, traveling to the heart, from which it is finally pumped to the brain (Hogan, Gabrielsen, Luna, and Grothaus 2003:76). Cigarettes are detrimental to society because they not only affect the user who chooses to smoke; they impact people around them through second-hand and residual smoke. The damage done by cigarettes is not impossible to address. Successful prevention measures are already in place, but this paper intends to suggest other more direct measures, especially related to statutory regulations.

Smoking is a particularly common and intractable addictive disorder and is the leading preventable cause of many preventable chronic illnesses and death, responsible for approximately six million annual mortalities Yet, despite the well documented consequences of smoking, despite the unequivocal benefits of quitting and despite facts such as that approximately 17,000 people die each day in the world from smoking prematurely, over a billion people around the world still continue to smoke people continue to engage in this health risk behaviour(www.who.int). This leads us to question what motivates an individual to smoke, and not to smoke.

The fact that cigarette production and sales are still legal in today's world is an anomaly. A while ago cigarette smoking was advertised and done everywhere. People thought that smoking was what everyone was doing and that it made them look sexy; now no one thinks that smoking is cool because of all the negative things it causes. It is understandable that some elderly folk are still addicted to cigarettes because they did not know any better decades ago when smoking was normal, but it is ludicrous that some still smoke after years of proof that cigarettes are awful for people. There are many commercials to prevent or stop people from smoking. Cigarette production and sales should be made illegal for the reason that smoking

However our concern here is not only about the cigarette as a product but with the ethics of cigarettes as well, that affect the social process of marketing. This is because marketing process makes things worse and is also considered as unethical, and as a result has a significant negative impact on the societal welfare. Multinational tobacco companies apply sophisticated strategies ( such as putting flavor in the cigarettes and placing cigarettes in the shops near the sweets to make them more appealing) and invest huge amounts of money for marketing, in order to establish brand familiarity and future loyalty among young peoplem, to secure profits in the long run. 'The tobacco epidemic is a man-made international health crisis, created and sustained by multinational tobacco corporations.' (Yach, Brinchmann, Bellet page 2).

The side of smoking that is rarely published will be explored in this paper. The side that only a smoker knows, not the side the governments and health agencies provide the news media with. This information is valuable because it is not very well exposed to the world. This essay will answer the question, “Why do you smoke cigarettes?”.