Suicide On The Tube

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This article is reported by Camille Agon mentioning on the situation and experience he had on his mind, watching a men to commit suicide on a London tube train. It occurs in the Central Line of London Underground subway system while pulling into Queensway station. There are several ways to commit suicide, some people tend to kill themselves on the tunnel. Statistic shows that 194 people killed on the tunnel track, while 50 of them died in the sooty tunnels of the tube. Average of 26 suicides per year in New York's subway and 24 died on tracks at Metro, Paris, last year. Camille Agon described about the driver's life on the tunnel, while the men was lying under his wheel with dark space, a gap as black as a coffin when he announced the train will not run at the moment. Agon observed that he might be a criminal or murder who committed crimes, he felt guilty and end his life.

Functionalism can be applied in this theory. Durkheim's theory of suicide says,"the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result" (1982, p. 110 [excerpt from Suicide]). He emphasized that there are two social forces: social integration and moral regulation. In this case, egoisitic suicide occurred in this article, resulted from too little social integration. People are being social outcast and not bounded to the social group. They were left with little social support and guidance, therefore, they commit suicide. With this, it will decline the social solidarity to the society.

In my opinion, the institutions have to do something in order to prevent this issue to happen. The driver or passengers may feel depressed watching a man died in the tunnel. They may need psychologist to solve their mentally illness. Committing suicide at the tunnel will not only affect the suicidal men, but the whole passengers in the train. The train may lose control and end up explode.