...Sociologists have explained the suicide phenomena in different ways. For example, while positivists sought to achieve a scientific explanation of suicide, interpretivists sought to demolish it by focusing on the meaning of suicide to those involved and the meanings they attach to it. Durkheim used the positivists approach to explain the suicide phenomena. According to him, our behaviours are caused by social facts; norms and values that exercise a social constraint which surpasses an individual. He argues that suicide is a social fact. Using quantitative data from official statistics, Durkheim analysed the suicide rates for various European countries and noted four regular patterns. The suicide rate for any given society remained more or less constant over time. When the rates of suicide did change, they coincided with other changes for example; they fell during war times but rose during economic depression or prosperity. Different societies had different suicide rates. Within a society, the rates varied constantly between social groups for example; Catholics had lower rates that Protestants. He identified the two social facts that determined suicide as social integration; the extent to which an individual feels a sense of belonging to a group and obligation to its members and moral integration; the extent to which an individual’s actions and desires are kept in check by society’s norms and values. Therefore, Durkheim concluded that these patterns were evidence that suicide...
Words: 1103 - Pages: 5
...failed. Religious zeal relieved the hopelessness of the situation for the Romans dreamed of the Elysian Fields, the Christians prayed for a majestic Heaven, and the Buddhists awaited the bliss of Nirvana. Ultimately immortality, whether be it spiritual continuance in the afterlife, philosophical justification of a fundamental essence, or scientific perpetuation of the physical self, brings meaning to life in relationship to the individual. The depth of this argument initially appears to be too ambiguous and irrelevant to every unique individual. First of all, the cases of immortality stated above, while all equally valid, are by no means inclusive of every possible situation. Rather, immortality shall be defined as the eternal perpetuation of any human component, which relates to personal identity. Second, while the “meaning of life” is something special for everyone, that meaning can only be pertinent to the individual, when the person can perceive it as being relevant. At any point in time, if people happened to die, without the everlasting retention of any component of their selves, the meaning of their life would be forever lost to them. Lastly, the context of the statement...
Words: 1899 - Pages: 8
...appeal- this aspect interested him most and it unifies his paintings from this period. Warhol stated that when Marilyn Monroe died ', I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face the first Marilyns' For him, she symbolised the apex of the beauty that Hollywood glitz and glamour had to offer. She was a household name, and it is clear that, in her fame, Andy Warhol greatly admired and looked up to her. This is why i believe he painted her after her death Xx "...and you said you thought "...and you said you thought that coming so close to death was really like coming so close to life, because life is nothing." - A recount of a dialogue with Andy after the assassination atempt from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. In the early sixties Warhol became deeply interested in death. Searching for new material Warhol serched the media and became fascinated by pictures of electric chairs, car crashes, and race riots. As a result he created the Death in America series, and the viewers were shocked. Warhol blatantly depicted death over and over again shown off centered, layered, or ripped down the middle, and thought the photos were shocking they were also strangely compelling. On first viewing one searches the black image of the car crashes to find the bodies but once the mangled limbs come into view, it is impossible not to see them again whenever the image reappears. Like the crowd around a jumper, the viewers of Warhol's series were strangely captivated in a mixture of horror...
Words: 1680 - Pages: 7
...Comparison of the poems “The Flea” and “If we must die” Many authors use images to convey a message from their theme in their work, as well, to enhance the meaning behind their theme. In the poems “The Flea” by John Donne, and “If we must die” by Claude McKay, both authors use images of animals to convey the theme of death, but each poem uses a different approach to death, one being symbolized by two lovers being united through a flea using a metaphor, and the other being introduced by the brutality of a hog’s life by using a persona. John Donne’s “The Flea” is a poem illustrating the metaphor of a flea to represent the sexual act and relations between a man and a woman. Portrayed through the image of the flea, which is made to seem insignificant throughout the poem, the flea goes through a “sex” journey without even knowing it. The poem maintains one speaker until the end, but has two significant characters: the speaker and his lover. While he is trying to convince his female lover to see that her virginity isn’t all that it’s hyped to be, he compares a flea to sex in the process, “It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be” (line 3), this quote suggests that the flea has united the two into one. Ultimately by comparing the flea to the bond between his lover and himself, the bond that “is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is” (line 12), he tries to persuade his lover that if she kills this flea, she will not only...
Words: 1160 - Pages: 5
...Grief, Loss and Finding Meaning and Purpose According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the term “grief” is defined as: a deep sadness caused especially by someone’s death; trouble or annoyance. In today’s culture and society, when we hear this term, it is often associated with the passing of a loved one. Though a very familiar terminology in culture and society, it is sometimes known but rarely understood. When it comes to the loss of a loved one or someone special in a person’s life, how one deals with and recovers from that is called the bereavement process. The approach to death and grief can be widely vast in the way a person reacts or expresses their grief during their rough time. Both grief and bereavement encompass a range of feelings from deep sadness to anger, and the process of adapting to a significant loss can vary dramatically from one person to another, depending on his or her background, beliefs, relationships to what was lost, and other factors. Grief is associated with feelings of sadness, guilt, regret, anger and so many others. The thought process during the grief process can also be challenging and difficult and can also range in its expression. Thoughts can vary from “there’s nothing I can do about it” to “it’s all my fault.” Grieving behaviors can shift from crying to laughter, and from sharing feelings to engaging silently in acts such as writing or exercising. One of the biggest issues associated with coping with and facing death is the issue of the “how...
Words: 1095 - Pages: 5
...lifespan are caused by their own discretion. Terror Management Theory refers to how humans rely on self- esteem as a means of protection against the inevitable death (Harmon-Jones et al.1997, pg. 24). Terror Management Theory states that self-esteem plays a vital role in either enhancing or diminishing the cultural anxiety buffer. This means that if a person has a high self-esteem (positive view on mortality and worldviews), the less afraid of death he or she feels; the phenomenon goes both ways. The Meaning Maintenance Model states that “human beings innately and automatically assemble mental representations of expected relations”, which means that people assume that most events are symbolic and is related to one another (Proulx & Heine, 2006, pg. 309). According to the Meaning Maintenance Model, a disruption to self-esteem reflects on how disengaged an individual is in relations to the environment and culture, in which that person will seek new explanations for their meaning. On the other hand, an increase in self-esteem equates to a decreased fear of death and assists in affirming worldly views. In other words, both Terror Management...
Words: 436 - Pages: 2
...i died The death in this poem is painless, yet the vision of death it presents is horrifying, even gruesome. The appearance of an ordinary, insignificant fly at the climax of a life at first merely startles and disconcerts us. But by the end of the poem, the fly has acquired dreadful meaning. Clearly, the central image is the fly. It makes a literal appearance in three of the four stanzas and is what the speaker experiences in dying. The room is silent except for the fly. The poem describes a lull between "heaves," suggesting that upheaval preceded this moment and that more upheaval will follow. It is a moment of expectation, of waiting. There is "stillness in the air," and the watchers of her dying are silent. And still the only sound is the fly's buzzing. The speaker's tone is calm, even flat; her narrative is concise and factual. The people witnessing the death have exhausted their grief (their eyes are "wrung dry" of tears). Her breathing indicates that "that last onset" or death is about to happen. "Last onset" is an oxymoron; "onset" means a beginning, and "last" means an end. For Christians, death is the beginning of eternal life. Death brings revelation, when God or the nature of eternity becomes known. This is why "the king / Be witnessed in his power." The king may be God, Christ, or death; think about which reading you prefer and why. She is ready to die; she has cut her attachments to this world (given away "my keepsakes") and anticipates death and its revelation...
Words: 720 - Pages: 3
...the same styles/elements. The authors of these short stories have many hidden meaning behind their words. “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edger Allan Poe, the “Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and, “Cast of Amontillado” by Edger Allen Poe have similar styles such as, using symbolism to enhance and foreshadow the reading. The author in Cast of Amontillado uses symbolism through the meaning of the title its self “ Cast of Amontillado” since Amontillado mean wine, and in the story the plot mainly happen based on the characters drinking wine, I thought the name symbolizes the results/effects in an irony way or drinking wine in this story. Since the character lures the other character...
Words: 710 - Pages: 3
...using material from Item A and elsewhere assess the different sociological explanations of suicide. (21 marks) Sociologists have explained the suicide phenomena in different ways. For example, while positivists sought to achieve a scientific explanation of suicide, interpretivists sought to demolish it by focusing on the meaning of suicide to those involved and the meanings they attach to it. Durkheim used the positivists approach to explain the suicide phenomena. According to him, our behaviours are caused by social facts norms and values that exercise a social constraint which surpasses an individual. He argues that suicide is a social fact. Using quantitative data from official statistics, Durkheim analysed the suicide rates for various European countries and noted four regular patterns. The suicide rate for any given society remained more or less constant over time. When the rates of suicide did change, they coincided with other changes for example they fell during war times but rose during economic depression or prosperity. Different societies had different suicide rates. Within a society, the rates varied constantly between social groups for example Catholics had lower rates that Protestants. He identified the two social facts that determined suicide as social integration the extent to which an individual feels a sense of belonging to a group and obligation to its members and moral integration the extent to which an individual's actions and desires are kept...
Words: 717 - Pages: 3
...Running head: GRIEF, LOSS AND FINDING MEANING AND PURPOSE Grief, Loss and Finding Meaning and Purpose Darren Pedro Grand Canyon University Psychology for Everyday Life PSY-100 Amanda Laster-Loftus May 21, 2014 Grief, Loss and Finding Meaning and Purpose While dealing with death is never an easy process, knowing how to handle the grieving process could prove to be beneficial to you and those around you. How we deal with our loss will play our in various emotions. In this paper we will take a look at the emotion a person goes through when dealing with death, how a person deals with death in their own way, and finding the meaning and purpose of dealing with grief. Death is never an easy subject to approach. When a person loses a loved one, various emotions come into factor. These emotions trigger feelings which otherwise would not be compromised under normal circumstances. However, the various emotions that a person deals with assist them in the mourning process. There are different stages of emotions a person deals with after having lost a loved one. It is perfectly normal to have experience these emotions and should go through each stage of these emotions. It is believed the common stages of coping with death are as follow: shock and disbelief, sadness, guilt, anger, fear and physical symptoms (Smith & Segal, 2014, p. 1). According to the article done by M. Smith and J. Segal; these emotions are onset early stages in the grieving process. They also stated it...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...comfortable, relax and even more have an easy life. Without all of these, he is being driven to do inhumane things like killing for the sake of having such. The absence of technology for man is misery. In this time of modern age, man is being blinded from the effects of the innovations that the modern world had introduced. He does not have any idea of his termination in the world while exhausting his body to the luxury of technology. That’s why, at certain events, man’s close encounter of death confronts him. “How many of us, though, can succeed in feeling these truths as consolations? We are not good at coping with death, especially in our contemporary materialistic age, with its pretence that we live indefinitely and that the fountain of happiness is purchasing power. Few face the fact of death squarely, or consider its nature clearly” (Grayling 32). It is always been a mystery for man to inquire about the beginning and the end of his life. His existence had created a conflict of meaning between his existence and its end. As for the beginning of human life,...
Words: 2996 - Pages: 12
...our minds and mental capacities, social psychological changes in what we think and believe, and social changes in how we are viewed, what we can expect, and what is expected of us” (Acthley & Barusch, 2004:4). Therefore, elders have a lot of thoughts about death and dying. This needs to be recognized and...
Words: 1198 - Pages: 5
...Life and Death Shapes Values Donald Barthelme symbolizes the events of death, in an elementary school environment, to depict the values of responsibility that the children lose and gain. The deaths ranging from an insignificant snake or a rat, up to more significant people like their peers, slowly shapes how these children react to the idea of being responsible as a class. When the recurring incidents of death happens to more significant people in their lives, it also starts shaping their individual responsibilities of helping others in order to prevent further catastrophic incidents. Then the epiphanic deaths of their own classmates dying made them question whether being responsible was the right thing to believe in. As their mentor, the narrator then prevents the lost of these important values of being responsible as a part of growing up. He demonstrates that though death is inevitable, they have to focus on the brighter side of life. In “The School” by Donald Barthelme, the recurrences of the deaths that the children either speculated or were held accountable for, represent their developing sense of responsibility in terms of life and death; that being responsible and taking care of things is an important fundamental aspect of living, as does living optimistically with the ability to oversee the fear of death. The deaths throughout the story could be interpreted as the symbolization of the childrens' growing sense of responsibility. The beginning deaths of the snakes up...
Words: 1406 - Pages: 6
...The Meaning of Life Analysis of the poem” Because I Could not Stop for Death” from Emily Dickinson “Because I Could not Stop for Death” is a poem written by the famous American poet Emily Dickinson in nineteenth century. She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Because she did not care about being famous or getting benefit from her writing, only 7 of her poems got published out of 1775. In 1886, after she died, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a famous American writer collected her poems and published them in 1890, but most poems got changed. Till 1995, her poem was collected by Tomas Johnson and changed back to what they were. Tomas Wentworth Higginson thought her poem showed her specially understanding of nature and life, she had the deepest, and creative insight. Death, Eternal, and Love are three important theme of Dickinson’s poems. Dickinson was good at observing, and detailed describing. Most of her poems were from her experience and her own feeling, and her poems could give readers a usual and deep feeling. She was one of the greatest and effective female poets in nineteenth century. Her poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death” was famous of the distinctive understanding of Death. Dickinson’s understanding of Death was so distinctive and meanwhile, the poem was full of Philosophy. The poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death” was short but veiled. The whole poem contained of 24 lines, 6 verses, and 4 verses made 4 lines of the poem. Dickinson combined Death with formal elements...
Words: 1314 - Pages: 6
...Barnes English 101 9 December 2014 Exploring Life in Death The meaning of facing death is explored in The Fault in Our Stars in the lives of Hazel and Augustus throughout the book; in a way to push them forward to live, and make a meaning out of it. In the book both Hazel and Augusts were trying to find a reason to live. For Hazel, she could have easily just given up and waited to die; instead she let herself live and fall in love with Augusts which was really hard for her. In the book Augustus told Hazel “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” (Green 153) at that very moment Hazel found a reason to live and a reason to explore life in way that she did not before. Green’s intention was to show the readers that even if you are faced with death you should not just roll over and give up, but instead live to the fullest, and not let something hold you back. In the book Augustus says “If you don’t live a life in service of a greater good, you’ve gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won’t get either a life or a death that means anything.” (Green 168). This quote is clear...
Words: 450 - Pages: 2
