PAPER Topics

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In addition to finding meaning and purpose to his life, Will Barrett in Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman must attribute some meaning to his father's suicide in order to resolve his ongoing grief. Suicide survivors experience dramatic shock a ....

Middle of Term Paper
... has the usual identity search of a young man, but he also has a special and time-consuming burden to overcome the heightened feelings of guilt, shame, and rejection caused by his father's suicide. In the end, Jamie and Sutter Vaught, as adopted family, help Will find meaning in life and resolution with his father's suicide. Suicide may be the least forgivable sin of all human betrayals; Ed Barrett arrogantly and selfishly committed suicide, leaving himself dead and unanswerable to his son. As John M. Schwartz states, what finally provoked Mr. Barrett to suicide was, "His dance of honor collapsed amidst its moral ambiguities. At the las ...