Beliefs In The Existence Of Ghosts And Poltergeists Term Paper

Beliefs In The Existence Of Ghosts And Poltergeists - Term Paper Example Saul was inclined to fits and visions, and perhaps in this instance, all that happened was that his imagination took over at a time when he was desperate. The prediction wasn’t even totally correct, although Saul would die at the hand of the Philistines – but that is likely to have happened anyway he was so disheartened. Webster’s Dictionary defines a ghost as being ‘a spirit or a demon, a disembodied soul.’ believed to be an inhabitant of an unseen world. Kipling, whose son died in the Ist World War and who might well have wanted contact with him, is warning people to leave well alone. The ghost of Samuel is not, of course, the only well known literary ghost. In the Odyssey, Homer describes how Circe advises Odysseus to consult the spirits of the dead. ( Odyssey 11 v 23-28.) There is also Hamlet’s father in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Banquo in his Macbeth., the ghosts being devices to explain a character’s inner feelings or move the story on. ‘Whethering Heights’ by Emily Brontà © ( 1847) has its Kathy clawing at the windows. Dickens, of course, had Marley appearing to Scrooge ( A Christmas Carol, 1843), one of the few instances in literature where some good resulted. In modern-day films, we have the Ghostbusters and of course the Harry Potter films, both of which show ghosts as being evil things, although J.K. Rowling also portrays more gentle beings such as Harry’s parents. In C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Great Divorce’ (1945) the author describes ghosts who have to choose whether to give up their sins and go to he aven or whether they prefer to retain them and go to hell. Stevie Smith in her 1953 poem ‘ Not waving but drowning’ has the dead man explaining his predicament.