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The Nature of a Crime · Theme

Suicide and Death

How The Nature of a Crime develops Suicide and Death.

The narrator contemplates suicide as a final act of escape from his emotional torment and financial exposure, framing death as a gamble and a potential refuge from thought and feeling.

Where it surfaces

  • I

    The narrator plans to use poison from his ring, and the mouse's fate becomes a symbol of his own life-or-death gamble.

  • III

    The narrator contemplates death as an escape from his unfulfilled desire, and offers his beloved the power to decide his fate.

  • VI

    The narrator contemplates death as a refuge from exposure and imprisonment, and discusses the difference between death for a man of action versus a man of thought.

  • VII

    The narrator's resolve to end his life and his preparation for death dominate the chapter.

  • VIII

    The narrator's near-death experience and his contemplation of suicide as a refuge from his beloved.