The Dialogue Of A Man And The Soul

The ancient text “The Dialogue of a Man and the Soul” is a tale of a conversation between a man and his soul, regarding their viewpoints toward death. The man abides by the Egyptian traditions of viewing death as a positive gesture and wants to experience it now, whereas the soul is more focused on valuing the time on the earth. This intense conversation is a conflict between the internal thoughts of a man who is contemplating the idea of suicide; emphasizes the separation of himself and his soul based on the value of being alive in which neither the soul or man can come to conclusion on. The man has finalized his viewpoint that by taking his life, he will end his misery. In his first speech, the man is miserable with life and says that “it …show more content…
The soul makes remarks such as “aren’t you a man” and “you should ponder life, like a man of riches” in order to change the man’s perception of his life (32, 33). The connotation of the phrase ‘aren’t you a man’ comes off as being tormenting. The soul is poking at the idea that the man is being weak and not facing his problems as he should be, and believes that the man should be focused on living and finding out what he can do to make his life better rather than dwelling on the past. The man repeats the phrase “I will make….” between lines 40-50 in order to persuade his soul to abide by his decision of suicide by explaining what he will do to ensure that the soul will have proper a burial for their body. The soul is baffled by this promise, and he goes on to explain how death “is taking a man away from his home,” in which the word ‘home’ could be referring to everything that identify a person, which in turn leads to the idea that there are no positives that come with dying if one does not live out his life (58). The soul feels cheated out of its ability to grow through experiencing life, shown through the story about a man whose family got eaten by crocodiles in which the soul told the man. In the lines “but I shall ponder on her children, / crushed in the egg,” the phrase ‘crushed in the egg’ is referring to the idea the children were killed before their souls …show more content…
However, by looking at the phrase said by the soul “I shall alight when you are weary; / so shall we make harbour together,” the word ‘we’ portrays that the soul and man are one and that their harbour or trip that they will take to heaven will be together as one (154-153). Moreover, the word ‘alight’ is an indication that the soul will be present with the man when it is time for them to depart from the physical