Suicide is a dark subject, generally avoided in everyday conversations and in children's literature. It's understandable. Some topics require a developed level of maturity to fully understand. However, the darkness of a subject, while naturally considering it a taboo subject, should not make it impossible to discuss in a society that desperately needs to understand it. The importance of being comfortable diminishes in comparison to the importance of trying to save lives. Society must face its fear of unhappiness in order to achieve the common good. Thus, in the novel The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, the author uses Hanna's suicide as a motive to analyze different attitudes towards death. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay One of the motives for Hanna's suicide appears to be the need to escape the moral weight of her wrongdoing. After Hanna learns to read, she spends time studying "a general bibliography on the concentration camps and...a few books on women in the camps, both prisoners and guards" (Schlink 205). With the knowledge she gains from these books, Hanna fully realizes the implications of her actions in the Nazi guard camp. She cannot escape the truth written in ink, and this truth convinces her. She is overwhelmed by the loss of life she has caused and which cannot be repaired. Ironically, previously, it was Hanna's fear that made her innocent, as her illiteracy prevented her from understanding the full effects of her actions in prison. After overcoming this fear, she finds herself confronted with another obstacle: her maturity resulting from this new knowledge imposes a heavy conscience on her. Overall, she is too overwhelmed to deal with her problems, which may have contributed to her motivation to commit suicide. Therefore, this motivation would view death as a release from the seemingly unbearable pain of life. Another motivation for Hanna's action is the realization that her hope in a possible romance with Michael is only the product of a long-term accumulation of imagined fantasies. Initially, Michael is presented as the one fantasizing, due to the description of his infatuation, stating: "I could barely sleep, I wanted her, I dreamed of her..." ​​(Schlink 27). However, in truth, Hanna idealizes Michael in the same way. For example, in the last scene before she leaves him in his youth, when she sees him at the swimming pool, Hanna expects Michael to act as if he recognizes her as his lover (Schlink 79-80). It is here that Hanna's image of Michael is shattered for the first time. She has unrealistic expectations of herself that don't match the reality of her youthful character. The second time Hanna realizes that Michael does not live up to her ideals is the day before he is released from prison. Michael is cold and casual in conversation and no longer perceives Hanna in the same way as before (Schlink 195). He's clearly no longer interested in her romantically and she wastes no time trying to convince herself that the situation is fixable. Instead of choosing to live in a reality that constantly crushes her dreams, Hanna chooses to live in her own dream world. She would rather live in the reality she perceives than face another obstacle to her own happiness. Therefore, this reasoning would define death as an eternal sleep, an alternative world to the loveless one in which she lived. The final possible motive for Hanna's action is that she feels she has nothing left to