Jeremy Essay Research Paper email dakselrodhotmailcomtitle Jeremy

Jeremy Essay, Research Paper

email: dakselrod@hotmail.comtitle: Jeremy A Richardson High School student fatally shot himself in front of his classroom of about thirty students. This headline appeared in a Texas paper a couple of years ago. If this had happened during the medieval times a bard would have certainly written a song about it. In contemporary society, modern day bards, whom we call them musicians, express their feeling about issues and problems in our society through their music. For example, the song Jeremy, by Pearl Jam, relates to the problem of teenage suicide in America through its lyrics and poetic devices, like repetition and metaphors. Teenage suicide has become a huge problem in America during the last two or three decades. In the years from 1950 to 1980 s the suicide rate of people, ages fifteen to twenty four has more than tripled. After the 1980 s suicide rate decreased, due to the fact that society recognized as a problem. Methods of dealing with this problem were invented and applied, such as counseling and stronger family values. Now, in the 1990 s the suicide rate is going up once again because the problem is being neglected. Currently, teenage suicide is the third leading source of deaths among teenagers. Fifteen out of 100,000 successfully commit suicide (applies the just the adolescent part of the population), and only God knows how many teenagers try to commit suicide. Many of them fail and are left disabled or emotionally scarred for the remainder of their lives. The first step of dealing with this problem is to recognize that it exists; only then we can find means of dealing with it. Thanks, to musicians like Pearl Jam, the problem is being acknowledged more and more. As soon as we all believe that we have a problem, we can eliminate it. The song, Jeremy,” actually depicts a real teenager who committed suicide. The article published in a Texas paper about this boy inspired Pearl Jam to write the song. It is essential to know some background story about this incident before analyzing the lyrics. Jeremy Wade Delle was sixteen years old when he shot himself in front of a class room of about 30 students with a .357-caliber Magnum. Because he had missed class, the teacher in his second-period English class told Jeremy to get an admittance slip from the school office. Instead, he returned with the gun. He walked directly in front of the classroom. Miss, I got what I really went for, he said, then placed the barrel in his mouth and fired, according to the police report. The shooting occurred before the students or the teacher could react. This incident quickly spread and stunned everyone in Richardson, Texas. Sgt. Pennington, the investigating officer, said Jeremy apparently had given some thought to his actions because he left a suicide not with a classmate. Jeremy s attendance was very poor. He was in counseling with his father. His parents divorced in 1979, according to Dallas County Court records. Jeremy s classmates reported him troubled by his relationship with his father. The few students who knew Jeremy personally described him as a loner. The teenager was very antisocial and most of the time sad and depressed. Since this was the first suicide in this town since 1988, the word of it quickly spread throughout the community. After everyone knew about the problem, ideas, and answers started popping up. The town quickly found counselors to help everyone in the school deal with their emotions. Experts gathered to speak in front of the students of different schools affected by this incident. Since the town was able to recognize this problem they dealt with it effectively. Pearl Jam seized the opportunity and decided to write a song to educate the rest of the world about this ongoing and increasing problem. Even if you are not a rock music fan, you have to have heard this song on the radio because of its high rank on the music charts a couple of years ago. The song is characterized by the constantly repeated lines, Jeremy spoke in class today. This sentence is the most important idea in this song. In fact, this is the only direct clue the song gives to the idea of suicide, and even this clue is a metaphor. Jeremy was always a loner. He never related to his classmates; he kept to himself. Jeremy was not the type of person that would have joined a class discussion or would have raised his hand to answer a question. Indeed, Jeremy was not the kind of person who would speak up in class. His suicide was the only way Jeremy had actually communicated with the rest of the world; it was the only way Jeremy could get the world s attention. This is the most important idea of the song, but this is not the only clue the song gives to suicide. To better understand the meaning of the entire song, I will analyze it one stanza at a time. At home, drawing pictures of mountain tops, with him on top. Lemon yellow sun, arms raised in a V. These are the opening lines of the song. Drawing pictures of mountains and the sun sounds like a very healthy activity. Usually this implies that a person is happy and satisfied with life. To a psychologist, the sun would mean that Jeremy s life is full of happiness and joy, but he would be dead wrong. The grotesque words, The dead lay in pools of maroon below, follow the sadness-free lines. This is the first clue given by the song to Jeremy s very disturbed state of being. Notice the absence of rhyme in this paragraph. The same style is observ