Final Essay: Premortality in Mormon Literature

A theme that I noticed across the different genres we read this semester was the theme of premortality. Very early on, we read Added Upon, by Nephi Anderson. Within this book Anderson attempts to portray what the war in heaven might have been like, and the feeling is largely detached. Anderson seems to be attempting to achieve a sort of "Mormon epic" and the detachment in this first section is key to the heaven-like pathos he is trying to develop. He portrays specific characters as having chosen to follow God, or being on the fence about which plan they are going to follow, which is a uniquely Mormon concept. The debates between characters about what the purpose of mortality will be drive the plot of the first fifth of the book. In this section, there also seem to be subtle hints of soulmate theology, which is complicated later in the book.

The movie Avatar by James Cameron also incorporates this theme subtly. Despite Avatar not being necessarily a work of Mormon literature, the theme of premortality is represented by the character of Jake Sully, whose human spirit/consciousness enters a new body. He is given a plan before he enters that body, but he decides to go against that plan. For Jake, premortality eventually becomes a distant memory as he merges fully with his new body. This film obviously approaches the theme differently than Nephi Anderson's book. The cosmic nature of premortality is represented by hulking spaceships and ultra advanced technology. By contrast, Anderson uses mostly vague descriptions of celestial scenery. Both concepts are hard to comprehend for viewers, and can be taken as symbolic representations rather than actual depictions of premortality.

The play Gaia also follows the theme of premortality, centered around the spirits of Satan and Eve. This interpretation is minimalistic, the play is a simple conversation, before the sides have been evenly split. The ambiguity here is centered around who Lucifer was and who Eve was. Both are characters that are not often given character and personality in Mormon theology. Lucifer is usually portrayed as simply evil, and Eve as primarily a mother. This play makes Eve the primary architect of the Earth, and makes Lucifer an intellectual worried about the nature of free will, concerned about how the Father could even think of sending His children someplace they might not succeed. This humanization of abstract concepts in Mormon theology plays a different role in helping the audience to understand premortality: rather than detached storytelling or dazzling visual effects, the simple conversation can be taken as a metaphor for the essence of spirit, which is intelligence.

All three of these works speak to the idea of premortality, but the different genres and aims of each work makes them a unique part of a collective Mormon consciousness about premortal life.