“Toys of desperation” suicide as protest rhetoric

Abstract

This paper examines the act of protest suicide as a form of rhetoric. Three representative cases of protest suicide, those of Emily Wilding Davison, Terence James MacSwiney, and Norman Morrison/Roger LaPorte, are studied for insight into the following unanswered questions concerning this act. What blend of emotional expression and movement goals motivates the actor? In a free society with other avenues of dissent open, why choose an act as extreme and irrevocable as protest suicide? What is the act's impact on those within and those outside the movement? By viewing protest suicide as a form of “symbolic inducement,” this method of dissent may be seen as a rhetorical act whose motivation, form and impact can be better understood.