The Five People You Meet in Heaven: the Impact of Relationships

Personal tendency Attempt to tie every idea, topic, and commentary support to the prompt and the thesis. affect sure no deviations from the current main ideas last and all ideas atomic number 18 directly relevant to surrounding sentences. Personal Goal Attempt to tie every idea, topic, and commentary back to the prompt and the thesis. Make sure no deviations from the current main ideas exist and all ideas are directly relevant to surrounding sentences. Clayton Little Ms. Davis English 2 22 February 2013 Independent Reading ProjectThe Five People You Meet in promised land by Mitch Albom follows a mans journey through and through heaven after dying at the age of 83 in a horrific theme park accident. The novel proposes that when wiz dies, one meets with the fivesome people that most influenced, affected, or defined one, before moving on. The account give tongue toment is told partly through Eddies interactions with his five people and also through vivid snapshots of his kee p, both of which allow the referee to see changes in his example and the development of his identity as he journeys through life-time.The changes in Eddies character before and after his death and the musings the author instills in the ratifier exemplify the theme that what defines an individual the most are the people near them and their family kinds with them. The novel begins at the end, right before Eddie dies in the accident. It is here the reader gets the first view of Eddie as an old man, weary of the world His plans never worked out.In time, he found himself-importance graying and wearing looser pants and in a state of weary acceptance, that this was who he was and who he al routes would be, a man with backbone in his shoes in a world of mechanical gag and grilled frankfurters (Albom 5). This initial introduction to Eddie delivers the reader with a vivid interpretation of his weariness and resignation. Throughout this same first chapter, the author also interjects humble stories of Eddies past, no more than a paragraph each A nonher bosh went around nearly Eddie. As a soldier, he had engaged in combat numerous times. Hed been brave.Even won a medal. only when toward the end of his service, he got into a fight with one of his own men. Thats how Eddie was wounded. No one k sweet what happened to the other guy. No one asked (Albom 8). These short glimpses into Eddies past interspersed throughout his last moments make the reader wonder what the kernel of these stories are. The way the author uses short, clipped sentences and the repetition of the phrase No one evokes a tone of mystery, arousing the readers curiosity in Eddies past. What was Eddie like in his childhood, his adolescence, his adulthood? What made him into what he is now?These unrequited questions pester the reader like flies and builds the framework for future revelations close Eddies character. The first of these changes seen in Eddies character is when Eddie first awakes in heaven, finding himself 75 years in the past, on Ruby Pier, the stead that has always been a constant setting throughout his life. He is at the beginning. It is here that Eddie meets his first person in heaven, the gentle Man, who explains the intricacies of the journey Eddie must travel and how he will meet five people in heaven, Each of us was in your life for a reason.You may not have copen the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on Earth (Albom 35). Eddie learns that his race with the strange man he further knows was Eddies unintentional act that led to the Blue Mans death. The knowledge that it was his irresponsibility that caused the death of the man sitting in previous of him fills him with guilt and sorrow that ultimately deeply affects his identity and character, as seen in the 2 quotes, You see? the Blue Man whispered, having finished the story from his item of view. Little Boy? Eddie felt a shiver. Oh no, he whispered (Albom 44), and, Please, Mister Eddie pleaded. I didnt know. Believe meGod help me, I didnt know (Albom 47). The shock and guilt Eddie feels is profoundly felt by the reader, through delivery with foreboding connotations like whispered and shiver and by the ellipses and commas surrounded by phrases, covering pauses in his speech as he attempts to absorb the impact of the new knowledge.The revelation that he had a hand in murdering another person strongly affects Eddies character, making him more paranoid and confrontational, as everything he knew almost his life crumbles into a much less desirable image, a trait he holds for the rest of the book. The gruesome relationship between Eddie and his unintended victim affects Eddies behavior and attitude in a way that no setting, environment, or event ever could Eddie stepped back. He squared his trunk as if bracing for a fightEddie was skeptical. His fists stayed clenched (Albom 47).The transformation from a weary old man too tired to care about much but the weather to a confrontational man unstrained to fight for the life he had once known is radical and sudden, and brought about merely through what many would consider a fleeting acquaintance with a man he barely knew. Yet, this ap sustainly minor relationship had a major effect, clearly exemplifying the huge power of a relationship with another individual. The people Eddie meets in heaven do not all affect his character after death, such as the Blue Man, but rather permit him and the reader reflect on Eddies fluctuating identity in the past.One of these such people was his engender The prostitute done by Eddies father was, at the beginning, the damage of send packing (Albom 104). Eddie was often neglected and abused physically as well as emotionally by his father. This resulted in him always thirsting for approval or affection, two things he would only ever receive in small, taunting tastes from his father And on occasion, as if to feed the weakest emb ers of a fire, Eddies father let a wrinkle of pride crack the veneer of his disinterest (Albom 106).This virtual(prenominal) torture of Eddies emotions as a child and for the rest of his life would forever scar him and breed a habit of coldness between Eddie and his father. The impact on Eddies character cut deep. The abusive relationship between him and his father made him into a man that was always peeping for his place in the world, always feeling inadequate. Eddie was never content with his tummy in life, not with his wife, job, or family He cursed his father for dying and trapping him in the very life hed been try to escape (Albom 128).Of everything that defined Eddie, the relationship with his father was the most influential, a relationship that stemmed from less than opportune circumstances, yet yielded what is perhaps the core of Eddies character. After reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven, it becomes intelligible to the reader that changes in an individual are dir ect results of relationships and connections between individuals. many an(prenominal) things can grow to define a persons self war, hunger, death, time.Yet none of these can compare with the soft words of a parent or the pleading of an enemy soldier on the battlefield or the trust held between friends. One realizes, as Eddie did, that every individual is serious a strand in a web, a drop in a pool of water, and when one strand is plucked or the wax disturbed, the ripple is felt by those closest. Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet in Heaven. New York Hyperion, 2003. Print.