Discussion Question 1

Ovid’s description of Pyramus’ suicide is essential to the story line because the whole point of the story is to show what happens when you try to keep two loved ones apart. During the Roman times and even before that, marriages were arranged by families for social and political reasons, people did not marry or love. Pyramus and Thisbe loved each other and longed to get married but their parents forbid it causing great pain. The point of the descriptive suicide is to really affect the reader so that they get a really gruesome image of pain that will stick with them and they will see the dark side of forbidding lovers to be together. If Pyramus had just killed himself and there was no detail, the image would not stick with people as much and it would not seem as bad. When reading the descriptive details about the limbs flapping on the ground and the blood shooting out like a water pipe, it is a horrifying image. The details are going to bring more emotion to the reader. A good example of this is the movies ‘Titanic’. In the movie when the ship starts sinking, hundreds of people are dying left and right and although it is sad, few people are affected by it. When Jack dies however, people always get upset (mostly the girls) because we have grown with him as a character through the movie and although 1500 other people are dying his death seems the worst because he is not just some unknown character, he is a character who has details about that people watching the movie have come to know. Details bring emotion and make things seem worse. So, the suicide of Pyramus is so descriptive so that it stands out in people’s minds and it gives the reader more emotion.