Finding Meaning and Purpose in Mitch Albom’s, 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

While he was in heaven, Eddie meet the Captain. The Captain explained that he was the one that shot Eddie in the leg. He did this, to save Eddie’s life. The Captain was waiting until Eddie’s passing to ask for forgiveness.

After Eddie found out all of the interesting things that he never knew about his father, he is now more accepting himself as a person and where he came from, as well as accepting where his father came

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

     The next person that Eddie meets is his Sargent from the war. He tells Eddie about how he, the Sargent, died, and how that enabled the rest of the company to survive. He told Eddie that it had been him who had shot him, in order to save his life. Eddie had become convinced that he saw someone in a burning building, and to prevent Eddie from going in there and losing his life, the Sargent shot him in the leg.

For example, he also saying how much he does for his family. He acts as though because he does all this work for his family, he deserves more respect from them and they should do as he pleases. Although Eddie constantly reminds everyone of all the work he has done for his family, it is clear that he initially only is concerned for himself. He tries to guilt people into doing what he wants. Near the end of the play, on Catherine’s wedding day, Beatrice tries to encourage Eddie to come with her to the wedding but Eddie think that what he wants is the final word. He tells her that if she attends Catherine’s wedding, she is not allowed back in the house, even though she begs and says it would be in honor of her sister. He cannot condone his niece getting married to Rodolpho, so anyone who is supportive of the marriage means nothing to him. The fact that Eddie would cast out his wife because of his niece’s marriage is a big reason why Eddie is an unsympathetic protagonist. In the beginning of the play, Eddie warns Beatrice and Catherine not to tell anyone about Marco and Rodolpho living with them. He tells a story about Vinny, a kid who snitched on his uncle to the Immigration Bureau and was publicly disgraced and spit on by his own family. When Beatrice asked where he is now, Eddie responds saying that they would never see a guy like that again. He shows no sympathy for him and implies that he

Everyone knows that the battle of Midway and the battle of Stalingrad were turning points of World War II. Allies defeated Axis Power successfully is not enough to make them be the turning points. The more important reason is that Allies took more advantages to win the war – the view of who will won the war changed. Turning points also exist in everyone's life. They change people's attitude to live. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven written by Mitch Albom, there were many turning points in Eddie's life as well. Eddie's viewpoints of life changed by meeting Marguerite, injuring his leg in the war and saving the girl called Amy or Annie at Ruby Pier.

Coincidentally, the little girl who taught this lesson was at the military camp as well. She got trapped in one of the burning buildings, and that was who Eddie saw and almost died trying to save. Horribly, she burned to death and when Eddie was informed of that he felt a ton of guilt. While in Heaven, he remembered feeling a little girl’s hands as he died and when he asked Tala if he had saved the girl in time she told him that he did. When Eddie died, he was feeling Tala’s hands grabbing his, and he saved the girl who was standing under the ride by pushing her out of the way. Even though he had only briefly met this little girl before and didn’t really know her, he still saved her because all life has

“But all endings are also beginnings. We don’t know it yet.” This quote is said by the author in the introduction to the readers. The author, Mitch Albom, says that it may be weird to start a story with an ending. But what we don’t know is that the end of one life can mean the start of another. An example of this quote is when Eddie went for his baseball and The Blue Man made the quick decision to drive out of the way to make sure that he didn’t hurt Eddie. This caused the end to The Blue Man’s life, but it was a new beginning for Eddie because he was in a life or death situation and fate chose life for him. So it starts a new beginning that Eddie wouldn’t know about. This quotation

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

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,

his father’s death, eventually the true measure of his character comes forth (Book I: 11).

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

Up until he met Tala, Eddie had the perception that his life was essentially meaningless. Eddie had held grudges against people and, in his opinion, not done all that he could with his life. Tala uses her own heaven to teach him the effects he has on others and how important it is for him to forgive. Tala says to Eddie, “You wash me.” Tala is covered in burn scars, because she was a victim of a fire in the Philippines, which Eddie and his men caused.

For instance, the 1st person that Eddie meets in heaven is the Blue Man. He worked at the freak show on Ruby Pier due to his rare skin color. It turns out, Eddie is the reason why the Blue Man died. To go more in depth, one day Eddie and his friends were tossing a baseball around and it rolled into the middle of the street. Eddie, only a child at the time, sprints after the ball going directly into the busy road.