Why Eli wants to live ?

[notagirl]

There was an old thread titled " Is Eli suicidal ? "

So can we look at from the other angle as Why Eli wants to continue her dire miserable existence ?? What drives her continue ?? An eternal child who doesn't know " better " ???

In the book she met one of her kind and the woman told her almost all of " them " committed suicide. In the film , in my opinion she was portrayed as lonely as it can of an existence. She is not aware of any trend like Rubik Cube and it tells me she is not in touch with her times & surrounding.

[intrige]

I think both bookEli and movieEli simply had a srong will to live, as an instinct. Like any child. I think it's in them to try their best to survive.

[Casper]

She ponders this herself.
Maybe it was because he was a child. Maybe that was why he hadn't put an end to it. The pangs of conscience were weaker than his will to live.

My thoughts:

There is a fascinating aspect of human coping known as resiliency, one's ability to successfully mitigate the effects of trauma, to bounce back as it were.
Eli strikes me as an exceptionally resilient child, and I would also image this is one part of JAL's own personality that he mirrored into Eli, but just a guess.
We see Eli as finding humor in serious situations. (At least in the book). She is also capable of blocking her mind from too much introspection, obsessing with puzzles and games.
I think she also feels somewhat defiant against her own guilt, knowing that her condition was the doing of someone else, not her own choosing.

[Nicro]

She ponders this herself.
Maybe it was because he was a child. Maybe that was why he hadn't put an end to it. The pangs of conscience were weaker than his will to live.

My thoughts:

There is a fascinating aspect of human coping known as resiliency, one's ability to successfully mitigate the effects of trauma, to bounce back as it were.
Eli strikes me as an exceptionally resilient child, and I would also image this is one part of JAL's own personality that he mirrored into Eli, but just a guess.
We see Eli as finding humor in serious situations. (At least in the book). She is also capable of blocking her mind from too much introspection, obsessing with puzzles and games.
I think she also feels somewhat defiant against her own guilt, knowing that her condition was the doing of someone else, not her own choosing.

^^^^Right here.

[rgh]

There is always the possibility that death could be worse.
If religious, then the wrath of God for the countless killings could await upon death.
If spiritual. maybe some form of karmic balance would kick in and 'punish' her for the killings.
If atheist, perhaps nothingness awaits...something that I find personally scary (while I live, after I guess I wouldn't care.)

Also, as long as she is alive, there is always some glimmer of hope for the situation to improve. I tend to think that anyone who chooses to live either expects that death is worse or that things in life will (or can) improve.

[a_contemplative_life]

Also, as long as she is alive, there is always some glimmer of hope for the situation to improve.

I like to think this is part of it. Trying to find someone to truly love her. (Oskar!)

[Nicro]

Could also be that Eli didn't find death to be much alternative. In Eli's...."Line of work" she has seen plenty of death. She also happened to cause it. All the death she has seen is pretty bad, and doesn't seem to offer hope really. Especially for a 12 year old. She doesn't know what will happen when she dies, and all her experience with death is pretty negative. Maybe it didn't seem like any better option than living. Equal basically.

[letmeout]

I remember watching a documentry once and one section was about a microbe that served no purpose at all, except that it was alive and that was all that was needed for it to continue to flourish. Or to put it another way, life wants to live.

[Alaska]

I think that she's just too young to have a full conception of suicide. Everyone has a survival instinct and you have to be VERY deep down to get over that instinct and do it, especially a child. I think that when she was changed, she barely knew what happened to her. Virginia was confused, let alone a twelve year old child. Virginia was old enough to have awareness of what she had become and to realize what her life was going to look like from now on.
I think Eli really just lives with the day, as children do, and doesn't have a future perspective. Suicide doesn't fit in her way of thinking. Besides, she's lived for so long that her life has become a numb sort of routine. Despite the fact she has to kill, she never lost all of her innocence.

[rgh]

Yes, it was explicitly stated in the novel that Eli's survival instinct was, because of her young age, too strong for her to kill herself. Of course, this does not invalidate the various other reasons listed. I think the issue is complicated and cannot be explained with any one explanation.