Despair

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Related to despairing: despairingly, depressing

Despair

See also Futility.

Detection, Crime (See SLEUTHING.)

Destiny (See FATE.)

Achitophel

hanged himself from despair when his advice went unheeded. [O.T.: II Samuel 17:23]

Aram, Eugene

scholar murders from pressure of poverty. [Br. Lit.: Eugene Aram]

Bowery, the

Manhattan skid row for alcoholics. [Am. Hist.: Hart, 97]

Giant Despair

imprisons Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle. [Br. Lit.: Pilgrim’s Progress]

Hrothgar

Danish king desperately distressed by warrior-killing monster. [Br. Lit.: Beowulf]

Maurya

mother loses six sons in the sea. [Br. Lit.: Riders to the Sea]

Melusina

fairy who despaired when husband discovered secret. [Fr. Folklore: Brewer Handbook, 695]

Narcissus

wastes away yearning to kiss reflection of himself. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 745; Rom. Lit.: Metamorphoses]

Slough of Despond

bog enmiring and discouraging Christian. [Br. Lit.: Pilgrim’s Progress]

Sullivan brothers

mother despairs over losing her five sons in WWII (1942). [Am. Hist.: Facts (1943), 106]

Tristram

or Tristan falsely told that Iseult is not coming to save him from fatal poisoning, he dies of despair. [Medieval Legend: Brewer Dictionary]

Waiting for Godot

tramps consider hanging themselves because Godot has failed to arrive to set things straight. [Anglo-French Drama: Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot in Magill III, 1113]

References in periodicals archive ?

sg Twelve families homeless Eleven companies closing Ten Lords a'snoring Nine jobless youngsters despairing Eight MPs a'milking their expenses Seven bankers a'sniggering Six posh boys a'boozing Five tax avoiders Four benefit cuts Three French Atos men Two bailiffs calling And a redundancy in a Remploy factory.

Happy Christmas.. if you're not sick, disabled or poor; 'This Christmas the Government gave me eight MPs a'milking their expenses'

A second, albeit related, tactic for choosing to wallow in sin rather than embrace forgiveness is exposed and indicted by Anti-Climacus under the rubric of "the sin of despairing of the forgiveness of sins (offense)." In this case, the self is "directly before Christ" and, as such, the offer of forgiveness is more directly explicit.

Kierkegaard as physician of the soul: on self-forgiveness and despair

These are the elements nourishing one's understanding of this majestic word compassion: the outward and inward grasp of the fugitive truth of our human condition; the unforeseen yet yearned-for intervention by a silent witness of our despairing passivity, by another enabling us to affirm life itself; and the sorrow born of loss that leads one on a journey in defiance of death and ends in the recognition and acceptance of our common humanity.

Understanding Suffering and Compassion

Of gaiety and companionship to those with companions and of despairing loneliness, all too often, for those without.