Monday, November 28, 2011

Weapon of Choice

Today, we were talking about how Claudias usually chooses poison as his weapon for murdering others and how poison seems to be a more feminine choice. I just wanted to share that I've once heard that in suicide, women tend to choose poisoning, for example carbon monoxide or overdosing, while men tend to choose hanging or shooting oneself. Just to back myself up, I found a little blurb summary of an intensive study on this topic which i have linked below. It's interesting to note that many of the articles I read just now on this topic say that many women choose poisoning because they are hoping for a chance that someone will save them. I guess in sharing this information about suicides, I'm just trying to exhibit that poison really is more of a feminine choice. What does that say about Claudias?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1943-278X.2000.tb00992.x/full

5 comments:

ParkerC said...

Poison is often paired with being sneaky and women are usually thought of as sly and sneaky. So it makes sense that they'd think it was a feminine thing. Whereas a man should kill with honor or something, face to face and let his victim know because he is a "man"

Shaina Lu said...

I agree. I know this sounds really weird, but I think it's still kind of true today. When girls have a problem with each other they tend to gossip and talk about the other person behind their back. (I hate this!) On the other hand when guys have a problem with each other they just like punch it out and then it's all good.

sara pendleton said...

Statistically I think you might have a point but ultimatly I think it's hard to look suicide broadly; it's very individual so I'd imagine it's difficut to find accurate trends. I think Claudius' poision had a lot to due with sneakyness and cowardlyness like yall said. I feel like a big part of the reason it was considered "unmanly" was maybe the cowardlyness involved; seems like it almost suggests he knew he couldnt beat his brother in a fight.

Ravin S said...

I do want to know how often these different method of suicide were actually used during the time. We are getting these stereotypes from authors of fiction works. I do however believe that the thought of the time was that men had to face their killer where for women it was acceptable to be sneaky.

alyb said...

I know this doesnt really apply to real life but I watch a lot of CSI, and every time a woman is the murderer she always seems to kill using poison. I think that its just a stigma that has developed over the years. I agree that poison is a cowardly way to kill, and i believe that Shakespeare was trying to show Claudius cowardly ways.