Suicide can often seem like an escape or a weak way to deal with problems, but does that assumption always stand true? When individuals have lived long hard lives and only wish to sustain and harbor their pride away from their earthly bodies, should we judge their action of suicide so harshly? In Arna Bontemps, "A Summer Tragedy", we are presented these questions upon the case of an old couple, Jeff and Jennie. Dying with dignity and respect for oneself can certainly seem understandable in situations of a life filled with hardship. Their despair from financial problems, declining health, and mental anguish, which leads to their joint suicide, is understandable because of the abject circumstances sounding their later life.
             Jeff and Jennie have many financial hardships that burden their lives. They have spent their lives as sharecroppers. Sharecroppers have small plots of land where landowners divided plantations into small units and rented them to blacks for a large portion of the crop. Even after many good years of farming, Jeff will remain in debt to the landowner. As Jeff reflects, "It don't make a speck o difference though if we get much or if we get little, we still gonna be in debt to Old Man Stevenson when he gets through counting up agin us" (473). It is very tolling on people to work continuously and still not have a respectable place in Western society as if they were to be making money. Even if they maintained themselves on the pride on working the land, they were too frail to endure another harvest. As Jeff says, "...[it is a] near impossibility of making another crop with his leg bothering him" (474). If they could not make a crop then they could not make money so that old m!
             an Stevenson may take everything, stripping them of years of work and of their dignity.
             Though financial problems cause great despair, their overall health is declining. Jeff has had one str...