This Burkean analysis of suicide notes argues that suicide is motivated by an innate human desire for order. Individuals who portrayed their lives as filled with chaos & pain composed the notes analyzed in this study. In a smaller number of cases, the deceased suggested that suicide allowed them to transcend their painful circumstances thus avoiding the assignment of guilt. As the rhetoric of the notes reveals, suicide functions as an agency by which their authors believe a sense of control can be re-established & order ultimately restored in their worlds. (38 refs)