‘I am resolved to avoid being made a public spectacle: Suicide and the Scottish criminal body’

Rachel Bennett

doi:10.3726/b15882

‘I am resolved to avoid being made a public spectacle: Suicide and the Scottish criminal body’

Rachel Bennett

SSSHL Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

Abstract

Executions in Scotland were intended as public events that went beyond the taking away of an offender’s mortal life. The theatre of the gallows was intended to steep the person’s death in symbolic rituals of power and punishment. However, this chapter will examine cases where condemned malefactors circumvented their state-sanctioned death by taking away their own lives. It will explore the multiple judicial and popular responses prompted by the commission of self-murder and will highlight the contested fate of the suicide criminal body.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Death in Scotland
Subtitle of host publication	Chapters From the Twelfth Century to the Twenty-First
Editors	Peter C. Jupp, Hilary J. Grainger
Publisher	Peter Lang
Chapter	8
ISBN (Electronic)	9781789972702
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3726/b15882
Publication status	Published - 2019

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ER -

‘I am resolved to avoid being made a public spectacle: Suicide and the Scottish criminal body’

Abstract

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