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The Death Of Death And Death

Decent Essays

On the topic of death, a question had been made on whether immortality is preferable to dying. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates’ death scene, Socrates has one last philosophical conversation with his friends about what happens to the soul when it leaves the body after death. Socrates believes that the soul is immortal, meaning that it will live on even when the body does not. The themes in Phaedo are similar to those in Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” which tells the story of a man named Ivan who suffers from an illness and eventually dies. At first, Ivan believes that he is living a pleasurable life; he is married with children and works as a judge, however, his illness consumes everything he thought to be good and continually suffers …show more content…

From this, it must mean that people’s souls are still alive after the body has died. Along with the majority, I am scared of what it will be like to die. It’s not that I fear what comes after death, because I believe that there is something waiting for us when we leave this life, but it’s the possibility of a painful death that makes dying seem bad. Yet, I would still choose death over being immortal because I would only have to experience certain pain once, and then my soul would be free and move on. But if I were immortal, there would be the potential of continually suffering and not being able to escape it. An important reason for why I would reject immortality is that I would out live my loved ones; I would out live any future children or spouses, and when they die, I will be stuck on Earth. Yes, I would meet new people and come to cherish them as well, but it is only a matter of time before we are separated again, forever. And with no one to be by my side in times of pain and suffering, whether it be physical or psychological, I will have to experience it by myself. Tolstoy writes “he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood him or pitied him” (146). Tolstoy is saying that Ivan believes he is alone because no one seems to care or understand the pain that he is going through. With immortality, it is inevitable that one will suffer, but that suffering will only increase and cause distress because no one wants to

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