Retrospective Analysis of Hanging Cases Between 2016 and 2020 in Urban India

Background: Death by hanging is a vital health hazard worldwide; it is classified as violent mechanical deaths resulting from asphyxia. The manner of death in hanging is suicide in the majority of the cases, and accidental hanging is less common, and homicidal hanging is still less common. The study was aimed towards analyzing sociodemographic patterns, precipitating factors for committing hanging at Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), Ballari, India. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at the mortuary of VIMS, Ballari, Karnataka, India. From January 01, 2016, to December 31, 2020, 356 alleged hanging cases were brought to the mortuary for postmortem examination, and the cause of death was attributed to hanging. The necessary data were collected with the help of history, inquest reports, meticulous postmortem examination, etc. The results were obtained after tabulating and data analyzed with a cross-sectional study. Results: Of 356 cases of hanging, the majority of the cases were in the age group of 31-40 years (140 patients; i.e., 39.32%). Male preponderance was detected in 235(66%) cases, and most victims have married 199(56%) subjects. Concerning seasonal variation, we noted that the maximum number of suicides by hanging was reported in July to September 141(39.60%). Out of 356 hanging cases, 178(50%) were employed. The predisposing factor was Chronic illness in 136(38.20 %) cases, followed by financial stress and psychological problems in 120(33.70%) and 50(14.04%) cases, respectively. Most of the victims belonged to the Hindu religion, 290(82%) cases. Moreover, 320(90%) of cases had no suicide note. Conclusion: Hanging is challenging to prevent due to numerous concomitant factors, but psychological counseling, economic support, and education can reduce the incidence of hanging.

Comparison of Suicide Attempts and Suicide Deaths by Jumping from a High Place in Korean Children and Adolescents

Jumping from a high place is the most common method of suicide among Korean children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to examine the personal, family, and school life of Korean children and adolescents who chose jumping from a high place, among suicide attempts and suicide deaths, based on teachers’ reports. Data on suicide attempts and suicide deaths by jumping from a high place in children and adolescents were collected through the Ministry of Education in South Korea from 2016 to 2018. We compared sociodemographic variables, suicide-related variables, emotional and behavioral status, school life related variables, and variables related to family problems among suicide deaths (n = 262), actual suicide attempts (n = 50), and interrupted or aborted suicide attempts (n = 210). There were differences in educational stage (p < 0.001), place of suicide (p < 0.001), presence of suicide note (p < 0.05) and previous suicide attempt (p < 0.001) among the three groups. The total difficulty score on the Strength Difficulty Questionnaire of interrupted or aborted suicide attempts was higher than that of the other two groups. Our study suggests that the suicide death group tend to present fewer personal and family pathologies and better school adjustment than the suicide attempt group.

Why Choose the Railway?

Background: The impact of railway suicide in the United Kingdom is extensive, yet reasons for why people choose this method are not clearly understood and research into the examination of suicide notes in this area is limited. Aims: Our study aimed to utilize the unique access to suicide notes written by those who died by suicide on the railway so as to gain a greater understanding of why people chose this method. Method: Descriptive and thematic analysis was conducted on 75 suicide notes for those who had died by suicide on the UK railway between 2010 and 2016. Results: Demographic findings from the sample were largely consistent with railway UK data trends. Five main themes were identified as being significant: “certain and instant,” “impersonal and non-human,” “ability to be planned,” “a good death,” and “bereavement suicide.” Limitations: Findings are based on suicide note authors who died by suicide on the railway in the UK, as such generalizability may be limited. Conclusion: Findings suggest that people select the railway for their suicide for the following motives: perception of being instant and certain and viewed as a good death, ability to be planned, belief it causes less of a burden on loved ones (via the perception of the railway as impersonal), and a prior experience of it being fatal (via bereavement suicide). Key implications in relation to prevention strategies and future research are discussed.

Species Suicide Notes

This article tracks the history of species suicide, a phrase that originally referred to a potential nuclear holocaust but is now increasingly cited in Anthropocene discourses to account for continued carbon emissions in the face of catastrophic climate change. With its Anglophone roots in the Cold War, species suicide discourse unites concerns about nuclear arsenals, so-called overpopulation, and environmental injustice across disciplines. Species suicide discourse is indebted to the US-based field of suicide prevention, which for more than half a century has analyzed suicide notes in search of effective prevention methods. Therefore, to theorize suicide prevention in relation to anthropogenic climate change, this article imagines a version of this genre that mediates between individual and collective subjects—called a species suicide note. As an example, the interdisciplinary and multimedia art project “Dear Climate” (2012–ongoing) by Una Chaudhuri, Oliver Kellhammer, and Marina Zurkow rewrites familiar narratives of crisis, shifting species suicide notes toward irony and unconventional techniques of hope. In analyzing these performative species suicide notes, the author complicates species suicide prevention by foregrounding narratives of irony. These notes accentuate a self-reflexive irony that works toward climate justice for vulnerable humans and more-than-human species.

Manifestoitis, 1979–1997

Labour’s internal crisis, which had led to clashes over the content of election manifestos in 1974 and 1979, worsened in the early 1980s with both the Left and the Right of the party claiming to act as ‘custodians of the manifesto’. Some of those unhappy with the growing authority of the Labour Left broke away to create the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. While the SDP sought to ‘break the mould’ of British politics, the Alliance struggled to define a coherent progressive programme and identity. Labour’s disastrous ‘suicide note’ manifesto in 1983 led to a change of approach, from 1987 it stressed the moderate nature of its programme. Tony Blair drew inspiration from Thatcher’s approach, centring the New Labour programme in 1997 around a small series of pledges, which were presented as a ‘contract’ with the British people.

Geometrical Characteristics of Handwritten Suicide Notes An Exploratory Case Study

Aim of study: to measure change in the geometric elements of the handwriting of individuals who died by suicide, detectable in handwritten suicide note when compared with material they wrote before the note. Method: handwritten material of two males and two females who died by suicide were sampled from the author's professional archive, comprising three suicide notes and one personal diary, and a sample of each person's handwriting prior to the suicide note. For the purpose of geometrical measurements seven handwriting features were chosen from the forensic practice of analyzing handwritten documents. (The written material is in Hebrew, but the research focus is on geometric manifestations and not content). Results: measured changes in the seven handwritten features were found to differentiate suicide notes from the way of writing in the pre-note material and are visually presented. Conclusion: changes in handwriting could contribute in future to the process of detecting suicidal individuals before the very first self-harming act is inflicted.

PARODY AND METAFICTIONALITY AS DEFAMILIARIZATION DEVICES IN MARTIN AMIS’S NOVEL MONEY: A SUICIDE NOTE

The article discusses the way defamiliarization is achieved in Martin Amis’s novel Money: A Suicide Note (1984) through parody, the comical perspective, and the metafictional elements. In the introduction the concept of defamiliarization is briefly explained while the first section describes the use of parody in the novel. Amis’s book parodies several literary techniques and is also a parody – as well as a critique – of the 1980s Britain and America, especially its consumerist ethos. By adopting a comical perspective, Amis creates a distancing effect between himself and the novel’s protagonist, John Self. He is an unreliable and unlikable narrator and often his description borders on the grotesque, which also adds to the defamiliarization effect. The metafictional elements in the novel, discussed in the second section, are also important and they contribute to the distancing effect, by defamiliarizing what is commonly expected from a work of fiction. One of the most important metafictional (or self-referential) elements is the inclusion of the author as a character in the novel. This technique encourages the reader to re-evaluate the relation the author has with their own work, which is now seen from a defamiliarized perspective

“Going Easily Under”: Waguih Ghali’s Diary of Depression

Egyptian Anglophone writer Waguih Ghali (192? – 1969) has been mostly known for his novel Beer in the Snooker Club (London: Serpent's Tale, 1987) up until his diaries appeared in an online archive dedicated solely to his unpublished papers. A few years ago, the American University in Cairo published Ghali’s diaries into two volumes under the title The Diaries of Waguih Ghali: An Egyptian Writer in the Swinging Sixties (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016, 2017). They were released to readers and fans, playing the role of a long awaited second work and also satisfying the general curiosity around his life before his suicide in the late sixties. In May 1964, Ghali started keeping his diary as an attempt to deal with his depression which culminated in his final entry being his suicide note: the trajectory Ghali’s diary takes is that of ‘feeling bad’. Ghali struggles with bouts of depression and although is unable to write more fiction, continues to write about his almost daily battle with mental illness in the practice of keeping the diary. His diaries reveal various emotions that stem out of his depression: sadness, disgust, anger, loneliness, and heartbreak. This paper will trace the affective outpourings of Ghali’s depression within the genre structure of the diary taking into consideration that his diary is not only a diary of depression but also of exile. The paper will attempt to understand how exile as a state of being affects Ghali’s emotional state. Moreover, by connecting how Ghali writes about ‘feeling bad’ in the form of a diary, the paper questions the relationship between his practice as a diarist to his display of such feelings.

Rohith-Movement, Conversion, and Renaming

Reflecting on the “suicide” of the anti-caste student activist in India, Rohith Vemula, now a Dalit icon, this paper looks at the various meanings that his suicide note generates for the Dalit present. Mobilizing historical and philosophical material, particularly the work of anti-caste intellectuals such as Ambedkar and Iyothee Thass, the paper argues that conversion and renaming, among the oppressed, are acts that move toward becoming-other.