Dunarea de Jos University, Galati The Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology Specialisation - Sociology

SUICIDE
Name:Elena Dnil Coordinator: Diana Popa

MOTTO: Those who havent known terrible furies have no idea about suicide, which is a mad fury phenomenon. (Emil Cioran)

Definition: Suicide is any death case which results directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act which is carried out by the victim himself/herself who knows what the result would be. (Emile Durkheim)
Suicide is the act of desperation of a person who doesnt want to live any more.

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was a French philosopher and sociologist, founder of French school of sociology.

The Suicide (Le suicide, 1897) the third important work

of Durkheim, due to the theme the rise of suicide rate towards the end of the 19th century.

The first chapter - Suicide and the psychopathic moods, shows

the influence the extra-social causes may have upon suicides.

In his work Durkheim speaks about four types of suicides:

a) The maniacal suicide appears because of hallucinations or delirious conceptions. b) The melancholic suicide appears when the patient is depressed or sad and (s)he does not value his/her relationships with the people and things around him/her.

c) The obsessive suicide has no particular reason, but the patient has a very strong desire to die. d) The impulsive or automatic suicide just like the obsessive suicide, it is characterized by lack of motivation but it appears suddenly and the patient cannot resist it.

The second chapter - Suicide and the normal psychological moods. Race. Heredity, refers to the way race influences
suicides.

Race is a group of people with common features which are hereditary. The facts clearly show that if the number of suicides of a people is bigger than the number of suicides of another people is due to the level of civilization and not to the race of the respective people.
When we talk about families with a high suicide rate, it often happens to be identical with one another, that is they occur at the same age and in the same way. To conclude, we cannot refer to heredity as being the tendency which appears only at adulthood and accentuates itself while ageing.

The third chapter - Suicide and cosmic factors, Durkheim

emphasizes two cosmic factors which might influence suicide: climate and temperature.

Some studies show that the order of seasons from the suicidal point of view is : summer, spring, autumn, winter.

There is no connection between temperature and suicide, because in different countries with the same temperature in a certain period of time, the number of suicides is totally different. Also, the daylight may favor suicide because the businesses and the social life are more intense.

The fourth chapter Immitation, takes into account a psychologic factor, which is considered to be a very important one. Immitation may occur among persons with no social connection. In conclusion, immitation is not an original factor of suicide, only with some exceptions.

When referring to the social causes and the social types, the author describes the following types of suicides: the selfish suicide, the altruist suicide and anomic suicide.

The selfish suicide has more factors such as: religion, family
and society.

The altruistic suicide occurs because the society makes people

too dependent on it.

The anomic suicide is caused by any lack of balance and thus a

person takes his/he life easier when the social structure suffers important changes.

Statistics show that:

widow(er)s commit suicide more frequently than married people but less frequent than unmarried people; too early marriages have a more severe influence on suicide, especially for men; after 20, married people commit suicide less frequently than the unmarried people.

Conclusion:

To sum up, the act of committing suicide is indeed a crime which has several factors that make us better understand the reasons for making people choose this. To many people suicide seems the easiest choice, sometimes even the spare situation, but it is not the solution to any problem, no matter how difficult it may seem.

Bibliography:

Durkheim, Emile, Le suicide, Iasi, 1993, Institutul European; Zamfir, Ctlin & Vlsceanu, Lazr, Dicionar de Sociologie, Ed. Babei, Bucuresti, 1998.

Thank you for giving me all your attention!!