Ilustrates the differences in motivation & significance of suicide in Sweden & Denmark. The US is an amalgam of subcultures that must be studied separately to identify psychosocial determinants of behavior. Concludes that the varying rates & motivations of suicide in different cultures & subcultures, the differences between men & women, between young & old, differences in ways of coping with love & loss, life & death, make clear that suicide is part of a culture’s possibilities. (9 ref)