The Five People You Meet In Heaven

The book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is a book full of reflection, life lessons, and experiences of the joys and sorrows that accompany life. The Five People You Meet in Heaven is about an old man named Eddie who meets his death after an accident at a theme park. On his path to heaven, Eddie meets five people from his life who he had an impact on, or who impacted him. These people teach Eddie important lessons before he is ready to move on. In the portion of the book about Eddie’s 2nd person, his captain, Eddie learns more about his life at war. The movie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is very similar to the book at this part. In the section about war, in both the book and the movie, Eddie relives his experiences

When his mom couldn’t afford to pack the lunches of fancy juice packs and chips, he was known as the stinky poor kid. That 's why I believe eddie highlights the importance of good character and being self-aware of who you are. Character and identity will be part of you permanently even if money is not. Social class and money hide people 's true values from being seen to the world because most people tend to look at others through a social discriminating perspective. Instead of good morals and traits being acknowledged, your social class standing is what people notice.

He lost his hat, the one that he got from someone at his birthday party. He got offended by Mickey, giving him a punch on the arm. From this, the readers can understand that MIckey, the alcoholic Irishman, was not a good soul to Eddie. Mickey will probably became a part of a negative time period during Eddie’s life, and this could be the reason why the narrator introduced MIckey in this way not completely positive. Thirdly, “She puts his hat back on his head. Later, she will walk him along the pier, perhaps take him on an elephant ride, or watch the fishermen pull in their evening nets, the fish flipping like shiny, wet coins. She will hold his hand and tell him God is proud of him for being a good boy on his birthday, and that will make the world feel right-side up again” (Albom 25) In a lot of moments we read about Eddie, how he suffered much pain and misconstrued events throughout his life on earth: Eddie was searching for some kind of peace within himself, which he never found. However, here the love of the mom for his kid is shown, and the reader can definitely understand that Eddie’s mom cared deeply for Eddie and his brother, Joe, offering her sons a nurturing alternative to their abusive, alcoholic

The author Mitch Albom incorporates sacrifice which is a big part of being a brothers keeper in The Five People you Meet in Heaven. Eddie was in war for a short period of time, during this time The Captain becomes his keeper because he shot himself in the leg to protect Eddie, as a captain he should have done this. He teaches him that grieving is the only way out of a tough situation, similar to the one he is in. Eddie does not recognize the reasoning behind why he did what he did. The Captain explains to Eddie, "Sacrifice, you made one. I made one. We all make them. But you are angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost… You didn’t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life." (Albom 93). By doing this it shows his bravery, loyalty and companionship towards Eddie. He shot Eddie in the leg so Eddie would not die in the burning tent. Even though he sacrificed his life for Eddies he was

Eddie at the beginning of the story was hopeful that his career would succeed.Everything started going well for him, people said he played from the heart. He was starting to show that he had money, he got a leather jacket and and wore a chain. He made 1 record that went to the charts. When he went to hollywood he met a girl immediately and moved in with her. Not only that she taught him how to play the guitar which started his music career.Eddie started to become successful however when the A&R man told him that he doesn't hear a single. His music career was basically over, he had no idea what to do, he was confused. He was lost, he had no career when his A&R man fired him, he is “a rebel without a

Keeping it child's play at the beginning things like the tooth fairy and Santa Clause. This was a positive and a negative trait to have because when Eddie started getting older his father is more critical about his appearance and leads him to believe he can only do a slim number of things in life to be successful. This impacted Eddie and shaped his identity on how he looked at his future and what he wanted to be. When he got older he knew what he could be and what he couldn’t be as far as career wise. Eddie knew he wouldn’t be the next NBA star or the next ESPN news reporter considering his dad already told him that when he was a child, so he didn't waste his time on things he knew he wouldn't be excellent

His second stop is where he meets his commanding officer of his world war II platoon. Eddie remembers being held captive along with his captain and four others. He also was the one responsible for coming up with a plan for them to escape. After they did that the captain told them to burn the place they were held captive but eddie ran back because he thought he saw a young girl, but a bullet was shot and hit him right in the knee. He learned the importance of sacrifice from the captain who then says that that it was him who shot eddie. He says that he had to sacrifice his knee in order to save his life. The captain then reveals that he died because he stepped on a landmine getting Eddie to safety, meaning he also made sacrifice.One his way out he advises Eddie to let go of his anger. The third stop is where he sees a vision of his father. He had flashbacks of the abuse he suffered from the hands of his father when he was drunk.then he meets Ruby who’s husband is the founder of Ruby Pier which was named after her. She offers him a new way to look at his father’s death. Eddie believed that his father died because he made a decision while drunk to jump into the freezing water and caught pneumonia, but really he was trying to save his friend mickey’s life. Mickey tried to kill himself after Eddie’s father caught him assaulting

She lets Eddie know even though he gambled all their money away she still loved him. Eddie resentful at himself for his wife’s early death, realizes that love lives forever. She tells him “Life has to end. Love doesn’t” (Albom 173). Finally Eddie reunites in heaven with Tala the young girl killed in the war. She explains to Eddie that she was the shadow he saw that was burned in the fire. “The nipa. Ina say be safe there. Wait for her. Be safe. The big noise. Big fire. You burn me” (Albom 187). She explains to Eddie he was meant to work at the Pier, to protect the

Eddie was born into a broken home without a strong father figure in Harlem on one of the worst streets in the town. There were already so many people judging him because of his race and where he was brought up. For a short time, Eddie chose to fulfill a more meaningful future instead of dwelling on his race, but ultimately, he decided to let the stereotypes of his race define him. As time went on at Exeter, Eddie learned firsthand what others thought of him and his race he quickly learned that “[w]hen you’re black, and you’re in a white prep school, control is the paramount thing in your life. You have to be in control - you can’t give anything away, especially how you are really feeling” (Anson 205).

After learning his lesson about forgiveness from Ruby, Eddie implements the teachings he received to work towards forgiving his father. Throughout his childhood, Eddie encounters abuse by his father’s hand, and during his battle with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, after returning from the war, and trying to cope with his leg injury, the only thing that Eddie’s father says to him is, “get up and get a job,” (Albom 108). Many other instances of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse take place throughout Eddie’s life, thus prompting the insightful passage of, “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair,” (Albom 104). Eddie even goes to describe his relationship with his father as occurring in three stages throughout his lifetime; neglect, violence, and silence. Upon the event of his father’s death, Eddie feels obligated to quit his schooling, work at the Pier full-time, and look after his mother, who is completely lost in her grief in the aftermath of losing her husband. Later on in the novel, Eddie explains that all he wanted to do in life was get away from the Pier, but he uses his circumstance as a reason not to,

That one even becomes his own identity. As an teen age boy, Eddie produces more than young boy could do. He used his own cultural understanding to communication with people surround. Instead of oral language, the music become the platform for his “two selves”.

     The lesson that the Sargent had to teach Eddie was about sacrifice. “Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious you’re not really losing it, you’re just passing it on to someone else.” (94) In other words, the Sargent sacrificed Eddie’s leg to save his life, and he also sacrificed his life in order to preserve the lives of his

Between those three, the least important was the one taught by the Blue Man. Although his lesson was very important it wasn’t the greatest of the three. All of the people who Eddie meets relate to his past in some way, even if he doesn’t know them. By talking to the Blue Man, Eddie learned that

Throughout the novel, Eddie also can be exemplified as a sympathetic character. sympathetic characters are when readers feel sympathy for throughout a story. The reader can feel empathy for Eddie, when the author describes the pain of Eddie’s gunshot wound. The pain was described to be unbearable and the description of the event of the gunshot pains a morbid picture in the reader’s mind. During Eddie’s time as a soldier in World War II, any reader can feel an astonishing amount of sympathy for Eddie. During, Eddie’s time as a soldier, he experienced, “A piercing pain ripped through Eddie's leg. He screamed a long, hard curse then crumbled to the ground. Blood was spewing below his knee. Plane engines roared. The skies lit in bluish flashes. He lay there, bleeding and burning, his eyes shut against the searing heat, and for the first time in his life, he felt ready to die,” (Albom 84). The reader can comprehend Eddies suffering and pain. Eddie was on the ground, in a war zone hurt and slowly dying. Readers can feel a lot of sympathy for when Eddie wanted to let go of the world and die. Before Eddie’s death, he ran under a falling amusement park ride to save a little girl, Eddie

Eddie had worked at Ruby Piers for years. He never really knew the backstory of the pier, but when he met Ruby, it made a whole lot more sense. He was confused at first because Ruby’s time was prior to Eddie’s life. Ruby taught Eddie that forgiveness is key to living a happy life. Ruby also let Eddie know that it is ok to not feel guilty about things for the rest of your life.