The Imaginary Life

The main connection in The Imaginary Life by David Moulaf is to Plato’s Symposium. When he first arrives in Tomis, Ovid hates it and can see no beauty in his place of exile. He dreams of Rome and the life he had there writing poetry and appreciating the arts. He sees these people he has come to live with, almost, as inferior to him. They have no time for the arts and when he tries to teach the grandson Latin, the boy is an unwilling participant in the process. When he first comes to Tomis he has two main complaints. One, there is no color and he constantly talks about the colors he remembers and loved from his time in Rome. Second, he cannot communicate. None of the people in Tomis speak Roman and he has not yet learned their language. For the first time in his life he is very much alone.
Then one day something amazing happens. Ovid is out on the steppes taking a walk and suddenly he sees a flash of color. He soon discovers that it is a single scarlet poppy growing out on the steppes. He is so overcome with joy at the sight of this tiny flower that he sits on the ground to observe it. He says “I love this poppy. I shall watch over it.” Ovid has come to the first rung in the ladder of love. He has found an inanimate, like a rock, and come to love it as he would a person. This was discussed in both the Symposium and A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud. After he discovers his poppy, his tone about the place around him changes. He talks more of the small joys he finds everyday in his life in Tomis. One of these times is when he accompanies them for the first time on the hunt and he experiences the running of the grave mounds. He has climbed the next rung of the ladder and he sees that everything possess some kind of beauty.
His final rungs of the ladder are attained with the coming of the child. Ovid is immediately taken with the child the first time he sees him. Ovid obsesses over the Child and his thoughts are only of him for several seasons. Finally the child is captured and Ovid climbs another rung of the ladder. Ovid himself says the Child is not beautiful and never really describes a physical characteristic about the Child that would cause him to be pleasing to the eye. However, Ovid loves him and cares for him because he can see the Child’s inner beauty; the beauty of his soul. He is fascinated by the way that the Child sees the world and sees the uniqueness and thus the beauty in the Child’s view.
At the end of the book, it seems that Ovid has climbed to the last rung of the ladder and grasped the idea of true beauty. Ovid lies dying in the grass watching the child at the nearby stream and describes the scene. Although he is describing the scene to us, he seems to understand that beauty is a concept to be grasped and not an idea or anything of a physical nature. Ovid dies having understood the idea of true beauty.
Another connection to The Imaginary Life is in the theme of the class; all that is in the past possess the present. This is seen in two main ways throughout the novel. One is Ovid looking back on his own life. Throughout the book Ovid looks back on his childhood and reflects on the way it influenced his later life and even his exile. He talks about his father’s disapproval driving him from the farm and his brother’s death bringing the unwanted burden of heir to him. Most importantly he talks of a child he knew as a boy his father’s ranch. He is convinced that the child he found in the woods is the same the child as the one from his boyhood. This is part feels so attached to the Child; he was part of his past. The other way Ovid talks expresses this theme is through is talk of the future. First, he talks about how he now sees how far Rome has come from a place like Tomis. He recognizes Tomis as a starting point and sees that places like it have been shaped into great cities like Rome. He says that he is “the product of generation after generation of wishing to thus.” He also talks of the future and often reflects on what kind of person the reader is and he often makes references to the reader as possibly a god. He understands the concept that each generation influences the next.