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When it came to suicide, ancient Greeks often regarded male suicide as honorable and female suicide as disgraceful. The ancient Greek culture regarded war as one of the most important aspects of the society and could not stand dishonor. As a result, most ancient Greek warriors committed suicide out of valor. If all other fellow warriors were killed in battle and one warrior returned home, that warrior would be viewed as pusillanimous and ignominious for not dying in battle or fighting to the death with his fellow warriors.3 Such was the case in the suicides of Orthydas and Pantities. “Fearing the charge of cowardice, the Spartan Orthrydas committed suicide out of shame at being the lone survivor among three hundred of his fellow warriors in a battle against the Argives.”3 Like Orthydas, “Pantites, a Spartan survivor of the battle of Thermopylae, took his life when he returned home.”3 Honorable suicides like these could also be seen throughout the entirety of the Peloponnesian War. Honorable death by suicide was so significant that there were consequences if the warriors did not Women, according to the ancient Greeks, committed suicide on impulse emotions.3 Their motives for suicide include “the destruction of their own household”, an escape from a forced marriage, grief, and “noble self-sacrifice, self-effacement in the face of the larger concerns of society.”3 Unlike callous men, women were susceptible to their emotions, resulting in their suicides.3 There is even an occurrence in which a women killed herself over the death of her queen.2 Ancient Greek women did not receive the same respect men received in ancient Greek society overall. Even if an ancient Greek woman committed suicide to save Greece, as did Iphigenia, she would be celebrated as manly.3 Not only did females get misogyny in their motives for suicide, the very way in which females executed the act was viewed as
The notion of personal honor is prevalent throughout the Iliad. The honor of every person in Homeric culture was important, but to the hero, his honor was paramount. He could not endure insults, and he felt that he had to protect his reputation — even unto death. The hero 's duty was to fight, and the only way he had of gaining glory and immortality was through heroic action on the battlefield; thus, he continually prepared his life for the life-and-death risks of battle. The Homeric hero believed that men had to stand together in battle; men had to respect each other; and they had to refrain from excessive cruelty. This last condition was critically important for the Homeric hero. He loathed deliberate acts of cruelty and injustice. If he were ready to kill a victim, he believed that he should do it quickly; he was not to mutilate him, as Achilles does with Hektor 's body. By following this code, a hero gained a sense of dignity and a reputation for honor that would ensure his place in the social memory of his community.
The Ancient Greeks admired their heroes and tried to learn from both their achievements and their mistakes. They believed that most great leaders and warriors followed a predictable behavior cycle, which often ended tragically. In Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, Achilles is a great warrior who traces the stages of the behavior cycle twice, from arete to hubris to ate and then to nemesis. Achilles is a highly skilled warrior and a great leader who becomes a narcissist and an arrogant person, which leads to selfish and childish behavior resulting in the death of his best friend. Following Patroclus’ death, Achilles repeats the behavior cycle by regaining his courage and motivation, and goes back to battle against Hector. The pride he feels in killing Hector and his overpowering hatred for him, leads Achilles to another bad decision: disrespecting the body of his enemy. This foolish choice leads directly to Achilles death. Although The Iliad is mainly known as a story about the Trojan War, it is understood as a story about Achilles and his struggle to be a hero.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, and as the Middle Ages unfolded over Europe for a thousand or so years, any remnants of ancient Roman and Greek approval for mercy killing or suicide disappeared. The Christian opposing view of suicide took root steadily, it became so accepted that there was no debate over the subject. Any favorable opinions toward suicide were met with harsh punishment such as flogging or beheading. Theologians such as John of Salisbury, Jean Burdien and Abelard Dun Scouts claimed that in no way was it possible to take his or her own life under the rule of Christianity. Thomas Aquinas, the leading Theologian of the Middle Ages believed that suicide deprived individuals of their natural lives and their roles in society; it
Throughout the Iliad, Homer portraits the extent to which honor plays a role in the lives of Greeks and the manner in which they are willing to sacrifice in order to reach their goals. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, a particularly long and bloody war, fought not over boundary disagreements, and not over political conflicts, and not to protect the nation. Rather, it was a war fought to defend the personal honor. The possession of women was important to a man’s standing and honor. Paris’ theft of Helen struck a huge blow to the honor of Menelaus and becomes the initial cause of the Trojan War. Consequently, Menelaus, the Spartan ruler, called upon his brother Agamemnon to gather the Greek forces to launch the war against Paris demanding the return of Helen and reinstating the honor for the king. The war lasted for ten years and cost innumerable Greeks’ lives and brought incurable pain upon their families. To Greek heroes, honor is more important than their life as much as that life would be meaningless without it, and they even willingly sacrifice their lives in order...
A mythology is an important feature of many cultures. A myth is a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humankind assumed their present form. In a broad sense, it can refer to any traditional story. A myth’s function is to provide a model for behavior and to provide a religious experience. By reenacting myths societies bring themselves closer to the divine.
Modern philosophy stipulates that the will to preserve one’s life as long as possible is a fundamental aspect of basic logic and reason. The will to survive as long as possible is described as an innate and natural instinct of being human. Based on this philosophical reasoning, it is inherently illogical and irrational to willingly put an end to one’s life. Sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists have also condemned suicide by stating that it is associated with mental, social and physical ill-being and that those who commit suicide are not in a rational state of mind. These scientific and philosophical approaches to suicide have contributed to formally documenting suicide as a wrong, irrational and immoral act. The problem is that these approaches see suicide in a generalized manner and do not take into account sub-types and different kinds of suicide such as euthanasia for example, which is physician-assisted and intentional suicide in the case of a terminally ill patient with no possibility of recovering from his or her medical condition. Technological developments in medicin...
The Trojan War veterans of The Odyssey succeeded in defeating their enemies on the battlefield. The end of combat did not mean relief from burdens for them. War is cruel, but in it these men see a glory they cannot find outside. Achilleus’ death in war is treated with ceremony and respect. Agamemnon, having survived that same war, dies a pitiful death and Klytaimestra “was so hard that her hands would not/ press shut [his] eyes and mouth though [he] was going to Hades” (XI, 425-426). Dying at home meant being denied even simple acts of dignity. Reflecting back on it Hades, Agamemnon characterizes the veteran’s struggles when he asks, “What pleasure was there for me when I had wound up the fighting?” (XXIV, 95).
Women had very few rights, they lived as prisoners, serving men 24 hours a day. Women were sheltered from society, restricted to their husbands and their husbands houses, crying out for help and justice but there is no one to there to hear their screams. In the play Antigone when the title character had to sneak out of the house to meet up with Ismene. Ancient Greek men ruled a lot like over protective fathers with teenage daughters. Men were also scared of women gaining confidence and begin thinking on their own or worse taking action or speaking out against men, like in the play Antigone where Antigone confronts Creon by burying Polyneices after Creon strictly stated that no one bury him. If someone were to bury him, the whole Polis would stone them to death. When Creon found out that someone buried Polyneices, he did not even consider that it could have been a women that did it.
In Greek literature, women are commonly assigned traditional gender roles. They are forced, confined, and demoted under the relentless and debilitating categorization of submissive, melodramatic, and obedient. When their position in society is juxtaposed with the role of men, the overwhelming discrepancy in the ability to pursue happiness and rights between men and women are especially apparent. While women are often overlooked and considered weak by societal terms, men are regarded upon in the highest esteem and provided with power and authority correlated with their gender, which automatically qualifies them with the role of the dominant figure in society. For the longest of time, society has constructed the role of women in a restrictive way to
“Then the screaming and shouts of triumph rose up together, of men killing and men killed, and the ground ran blood.” From first examination the Iliad seems to be an epic founded on an idealized form of glory, the kind that young boys think about when they want to join the army. A place full of heroism and manliness where glory can be achieved with a few strokes of a sword and then you go home and everything is just lovely. Many people view the Iliad this way, based on it’s many vivid battle descriptions and apparent lack of remorse for the deaths that occur. This, however, is not how war is presented in the Iliad. Homer presents a very practical outlook on war countering the attainment of the glory with the reality of its price and the destruction it causes. He successfully does this by showing the value of the lives of each person that dies and, in a sense, mourning their passing, describing the terror and ugliness of war, and, through the characters of Achilleus and Hector, displaying the high price of glory.
When you think of ancient Greece, you probably think of togas, polytheism, epic heros, and olives. But do you how women were treated or veiwed? There is quite a lot of evidence displayed throughout manyplays, epics and other documents. Oedipus the King and The Odyssey are two ancient Greek works of literature that exemplify their society perfectly. Ancient Greece was a patriarchial society where women were treated as objects and sex symbols and misogyny was often present.
Imagine being born into a world where your social status is dependent on your gender, where women are considered inferior to men. This idea is exposed in two Ancient Greece plays “Antigone” by Sophocles and “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes. In both plays most women are considered inferior and do not go against rules established by men. However, there are some women who do not let men restrain them from expressing their feelings. Therefore, the women in Ancient Greece were considered inferior to men, however, they were gallant.
Suicide is a preventable, yet a very serious public health problem. In 2009, more deaths resulted from suicide than from car accidents in the United States. Citation here! In the past, suicide prevention has been more geared towards youths and adolescents. However, recent research has shown an increase in suicide of middle-aged adults and this increase places suicide at the fourth leading cause of death among this age group. Citation here Little is known about midlife suicides, so with that in mind, direct practice workers need an understanding in how to address the needs and concerns of the middle-age group, so that suicide can be prevented.
Suicide has become one of the many means that problematic individuals take into consideration to exempt from an unpleasant or oppressive situation. Suicide can be generally defined as the act of causing one’s death usually out of despair. People who are likely to commit suicide are those who suffer from severe mental illnesses and are involved with alcohol and drugs. Other than that, individuals who are experiencing unemployment and divorce can also be possible victims to commit such act. Based on the study done in the year 1997, an average of fifteen-percent who are clinically depressed ended up committing suicide. Furthermore, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death in the US (“Suicide”). It is prevalent for depressed individuals to consider suicide when major issues in life do not work out well. The big question is, what makes a person thinks that ending his or her life can help oneself to escape from the reality when life has so much more to offer?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, suicide is the action of killing oneself intentionally. Causes of suicide can be out of despair. This can be a consequence of several stress factors such as financial difficulties, personal troubles...etc. Work suicide can be caused by the recession; this destroys a very large number of jobs, especially in the telecoms companies because they have a technological revolution. It can also be caused by bad working conditions and frequent unannounced changes in the work environment. Companies need to improve their productivity, which means that employees have to work harder and longer, this can also lead to being “stressed out”.