Paper Summary:

The paper shows that the mind in terms of memory and knowledge, the body and love are all themes that are tied closely together in both "Phaedo", by Plato, and "Beloved", by Toni Morrison. Both works focus intensely upon these themes and demonstrate that the corporeal life and existence are separated from our minds and thus our souls. The paper examines how love and that which we know (and forget) are independent of our corporeal selves as is demonstrated in both works though an emphasis on discussing the supernatural. The ghosts in "Beloved" and the sentient souls in "Phaedo" both represent the separation of the contents of the mind and heart from their physical containers. The paper shows, however, that Plato's discussion is one of academics. His intent was not to soothe, but to instruct. Morrison, on the other hand, takes a very different approach, one of spirituality as being separate from intellectuality. The paper concludes that the effect is that while both authors say the same thing, they do so in such a different manner as to make the same theme in both works to be quite different.

From the Paper:

"Toni Morrison's Beloved, centers itself, brilliantly, upon this very dialogue " what is the truth? What is it that we know, what is our memory? What is death? The idea of death and memory, thus the loss of that which makes a person once their soul has departed " a concept that is reinforced at the very beginning of the story when Baby Suggs talks of her sorrow that she can only remember "scraps" of her eight children. Here, death is understood, as in Phaedo, as that which separates the person, that which we remember, from their bodies. Memories provide a way for the soul to "revisit" the living. They change how we view the now. As the memories of a person are separate from that person, then they, in effect, like the soul, are immortal."

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