suicides in novels

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Originally Posted by cacian

It depends how you understand compassion. By compassion I understand it is care and knowledge in the sense that I will partake in showing gratuity towards life by sharing it with others. For me to be able to fullfill life enjoyement and its meaning i must help someone else in need to overcome whatever is leading to wanting to quit their lives. To prove to myself that I enjoy life to the full and that I think about the various meanings of life I shall therefore help someone in needs to do the same. Compassion is about showing others what you know yourself is beneficial is good. To let someone take their lives it is in a way we have not yet grasped what life is about and what it wants us to achieve.
Think of it in a different contest. Would you let someone starve themselves or not wash ever ie hygiene because they think it is piety and that is good for them?
The answer for me would be no because there is food and water and therefore there is no reason for wanting to deprive oneself when there is to be had. Life is about having what is on offer and not rejecting it. That for me is logic. Let's not take away life from life when it gives it to us free.

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I think you just spoke about empathy, a natural parameter of feeling. Com-passion is passion in common, and rare cases do exist, but they are not the norm.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I'm not interested in censoring any story justifying suicide. I prefer to see the story on display so it can be examined. I would call any justification of suicide "delusional", to use your term. That's where I think I agree with what I hear cacian saying.

The stories that I am referring to need not be classic literature, but just the narratives that go through the mind of the person trying to justify suicide. Where do these justifications come from? Too many of the sources for these justifications are treated with too much respect.



Yes, it could, but we are talking about suicide here. I only picked a few circumstances that came to mind that had little to do with my personal life. Regarding suicide, the most interesting case for me personally has to do with the elderly or those who are crippled.



Not all stories are toxic.



Another good example.



I think the belief is the story. Stores that open beliefs to scrutiny are better than those that do not.

You mentioned stories about whether a girl is asking for it if she wears a short skirt. How do you compare stories justifying rape with stories justifying suicide? I would put them on the same level.

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YesNo I always respect and often agree with your opinions, but here I think you're way off base. Suicide and rape are not at all comparable. Rape is a violent act committed against another, suicide is a violent act committed against oneself. A rapist is simply a bad person, a suicide is not.

I despise the popular sentiment towards suicide. No one can know what it is to inhabit the mind and feel the pain of another. I think suicide should be a right. We did not choose to be born, why must we feel obligated to live?

The main character in my novel kills himself. I see no valid justification for the prohibition of suicide in literature. No subject is out of bounds when it comes to art.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

YesNo I always respect and often agree with your opinions, but here I think you're way off base. Suicide and rape are not at all comparable. Rape is a violent act committed against another, suicide is a violent act committed against oneself. A rapist is simply a bad person, a suicide is not.

I despise the popular sentiment towards suicide. No one can know what it is to inhabit the mind and feel the pain of another. I think suicide should be a right. We did not choose to be born, why must we feel obligated to live?

The main character in my novel kills himself. I see no valid justification for the prohibition of suicide in literature. No subject is out of bounds when it comes to art.

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I respect your opinion as well, Darcy, and have always enjoyed our discussions.

The only time that I can think of that I would be sympathetic to someone who commits suicide is if their entire family were killed and they were the only survivor. I could see them committing suicide. I don't think this would be right, but I could understand the survivor guilt.

Regarding the right to commit suicide, I don't think it is possible to stop someone from doing it. The most one can do is not pay the survivors any life insurance as a result of the death and legal things like that.

Regarding prohibiting suicide in literature, I am not in favor of prohibiting it. However, I would disagree with the final result if the suicide were portrayed in a positive manner. The market however determines what survives in literature not censors.

We mainly differ on comparing rape with suicide. I consider suicide worse than rape. Imaginatively, (don't actually do this, because there is no point in causing her stress) ask your mother which would hurt her more: (a) being raped or (b) going to your room and finding that you killed yourself. I think she would choose (b). Alternatively, you could ask yourself this question: which would hurt you more (a) being raped while detained in prison or (b) finding your girlfriend or your mother with a self-inflicted gunshot wound through her head?

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Originally Posted by islandclimber

I'm sorry but this is disgusting. To suggest suicide is as bad as (or possibly even worse than) rape, is appalling.

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I was counting on responses like this, islandclimber. Let me make sure my point is clear: Suicide is worse than rape and the suicides's victims are the survivors. Just ask the parent of a teenager who committed suicide.

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Originally Posted by islandclimber

Regardless of what you think, suicide is an individual choice. It involves others indirectly, not directly. And we're not talking about suicide bombings here, that is something entirely different; in a suicide bombing, the act of killing others takes precedence over the suicide, the willingness to sacrifice oneself in order to kill others just makes it an easier task to accomplish. It has a direct affect on its victims. A suicide where one is just ending one's life due to any number of factors only directly affects the actual suicide, sure there are others affected indirectly, but that is also their choice to allow this to affect them. It has been said that suicide is the most selfish of acts, but it has also been said that those who want someone who (is miserable) and wants to die to go on living are really the selfish ones.

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We should not eliminate the political-religious-philosophical motivations for suicide. They are the the most inane aspects especially when seen at a distance from the issues involved. And as far a literature goes, which is what this thread is about, they usually involve stories--some pretty sick stories.

Why is it that the suicide's victims are expected to handle themselves appropriately, but the person who actually commits suicide is given a free ride? That is like saying, the girl who has been raped should realize that it is her "choice to allow this to affect" her?

I hadn't heard before that suicide is the most selfish of acts. Let me say, having heard that, that I totally agree. Couple that with political-religious-philosophical self-righteousness that is motivated by stories, it is the most disgusting of acts.

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Originally Posted by islandclimber

Rape has a direct victim; it is a violent act of aggression, generally against a weaker victim. It is a terrible, life-altering experience. I cannot believe you are suggesting that the victim of a rape, is affected less so than someone who has a family member or close friend commit suicide. Disgusting.

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Let me be clear. I am not suggesting. I am asserting that the person who commits suicide has harmed his or her family as much--no, more so--than a rapist.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I respect your opinion as well, Darcy, and have always enjoyed our discussions.

The only time that I can think of that I would be sympathetic to someone who commits suicide is if their entire family were killed and they were the only survivor. I could see them committing suicide. I don't think this would be right, but I could understand the survivor guilt.

Regarding the right to commit suicide, I don't think it is possible to stop someone from doing it. The most one can do is not pay the survivors any life insurance as a result of the death and legal things like that.

Regarding prohibiting suicide in literature, I am not in favor of prohibiting it. However, I would disagree with the final result if the suicide were portrayed in a positive manner. The market however determines what survives in literature not censors.

We mainly differ on comparing rape with suicide. I consider suicide worse than rape. Imaginatively, (don't actually do this, because there is no point in causing her stress) ask your mother which would hurt her more: (a) being raped or (b) going to your room and finding that you killed yourself. I think she would choose (b). Alternatively, you could ask yourself this question: which would hurt you more (a) being raped while detained in prison or (b) finding your girlfriend or your mother with a self-inflicted gunshot wound through her head?

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I'd be far more devastated by finding my girlfriend or mother dead after their suicide than I would be after being raped, but I would think lesser of the rapist than I would of my girlfriend or mother. Likewise, I think my mother would think the person who raped her is morally lesser than her suicided son. I suppose overall you could try and argue that suicide is in a certain sense "worse" than rape, but that would be in the wider emotional devastation it causes on others and not in regards to the moral status of the person who commits the act.

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Originally Posted by Volya

That may be true, but WHY is suicide wrong? If it is their own life, why should they not be able to choose to end it?

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Suicide is wrong, if you affirm that the universe is good. It is neither right nor wrong, if you assume the universe is not good.

This has nothing to do with any theistic position or atheistic position.

So, you are asking the right question and given that, I would ask you, what is your position on the goodness of the universe?

Regarding someone having the right to kill themselves or not, the fact of the matter is that people will kill themselves whether they have the right to do so or not. You can't stop them from doing so. However, you can tell them stories that might encourage them one way or the other.

What an ugly, ugly thread. The pop understanding of suicide doesn't permit most people to fully understand your position YesNo. But that's age appropriate sometimes. That's the nature of being fooled (by nature). Which is worse seems like a horrifically superficial question. And answering that question only provides information... of other interest.

Western conception of suicide seems to crutch on 'It's my life, I'll take it if I want to.' The moral argument follows pretty easily from the inverse. If you fully respected agency of the other, ie appreciated their capacity to feel pain is equivalent to your own, you assess the nature of suicide in proper context. Even though you don't feel it yourself, you honor the reality and fullness of someone else's pain-- such as the effects on a family or a community caused by suicide.

So much goes out the window when Western conceptions of the self get a little nut checked.



J

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

I'd be far more devastated by finding my girlfriend or mother dead after their suicide than I would be after being raped, but I would think lesser of the rapist than I would of my girlfriend or mother. Likewise, I think my mother would think the person who raped her is morally lesser than her suicided son. I suppose overall you could try and argue that suicide is in a certain sense "worse" than rape, but that would be in the wider emotional devastation it causes on others and not in regards to the moral status of the person who commits the act.

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I agree with that. I would feel the same way. I am only arguing for the wider emotional devastation a suicide causes.

I don't have any metaphysics that claims that the person who committed suicide goes to hell or is punished in some way after death. Although I don't think our consciousness ends at death, based on what I've read from psychics, people who commit suicide are not punished except in perhaps knowing the harm they caused. You may not find what psychics say to be evidence, but I don't have any other evidence to go on.

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Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

Western conception of suicide seems to crutch on 'It's my life, I'll take it if I want to.'
J

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That's how I feel on the matter, but I don't encounter this attitude very often. A person who expresses suicidal thoughts is met with horror and is liable to be locked up and forcibly medicated.

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Originally Posted by cafolini

I think you just spoke about empathy, a natural parameter of feeling. Com-passion is passion in common, and rare cases do exist, but they are not the norm.

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Empathy is an interesting word and I admit I do get empathy and sympathy muddled up. I think they are interrelated in that one cannot sympathise if one does not empathise.
I think a subject such as suicide goes ibeyond both because wishing someone to do something as permissible and fine but that we do not wish to ourselves is contrary to our beliefs and therefore false. Someone I know once told me do not feed something to somebody if you would not eat it yourself.
This brings me to think about present days jobs and the whole ethos about what we do professionally and how we feel about it. I was thinking it must be fake and allusive to do a job one does not believe in . To be professional and to believe in the profession is two separate things. I think our lives are already geared to live a lie an allusion. To strive in life teaches people to adopt blasé attitude and care free sentiment about everything else in life and that is concerning to say the least.

I agree with what peeps are saying about the emotional devastation killing yourself would do to others (that's why I for one would never contemplate suicide), but in my opinion you should still have that right to die. For example, people with terminal illnesses that make their life very painful. If they want to end their life now rather than prolonging it, who are we to deny them that right? I would certainly think that their family would be able to respect that decision.

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Originally Posted by Volya

I agree with what peeps are saying about the emotional devastation killing yourself would do to others (that's why I for one would never contemplate suicide), but in my opinion you should still have that right to die. For example, people with terminal illnesses that make their life very painful. If they want to end their life now rather than prolonging it, who are we to deny them that right? I would certainly think that their family would be able to respect that decision.

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Hi Volya you do bring a valid point and I feel that one that is in pain because one is disabled and is not able to conduct a normal life because he or she is literally in a vegetative state is a different subject. That is in my eyes not suicide but more of a need because physically one is impaired really badly. However someone who commits suicide because one is not able to get what they want or because they have gone bankrupt are physically able and can recover with the help for others. A physically impaired person is helpless because one cannot help their body adjust it is different. I feel it call it suicide is wrong. It must have a different name.

So someone who has a 'physical' desire for release from this life due to pain or degenerative illness is exonerated from the sin in your eyes. How very kind of you. But someone with a 'non-physical' need, be it depression or loneliness or some mental illness or whatever, is not?

Empathy? Hardly.

But this thread is supposed to be about whether suicide should be written about in literature or not. We seem to be wandering off-topic.

H

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Originally Posted by hillwalker

So someone who has a 'physical' desire for release from this life due to pain or degenerative illness is exonerated from the sin in your eyes. How very kind of you. But someone with a 'non-physical' need, be it depression or loneliness or some mental illness or whatever, is not?

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Not entirely sure if this was aimed at me, but if it was, I was merely using the terminal illness as an example, I am aware that there are other reasons people commit suicide

The answer is simple. Literature often reflects the harsh, cruel realities of life. Suicide is one of those realities. Deal with it.

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Originally Posted by Volya

Not entirely sure if this was aimed at me, but if it was, I was merely using the terminal illness as an example, I am aware that there are other reasons people commit suicide

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No - it was aimed at the OP.

H