The Five People You Meet in Heaven: Difference between revisions
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Since his days as a child, Ruby Pier was part of Eddie’s life. He played there every day as a child with his older brother and friends, and began working there as a teenager under the supervision of his father, who held Eddie’s position before his untimely death. After he returned from his stint in the army he resumed his life at the pier, where he remained for the rest of his life. |
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Eddie underwent years of abuse from violence, and concluded with absolute silence. His father would beat him as a child in his drunken state, culminating one night shortly after Eddie returned from war. As his father took a swing at Eddie, drunk, Eddie resisted by grabbing his father’s fist, for which his father never spoke to him again. Eddie’s relationship with his parents became distant after that, living alone with his wife, Marguerite. A few years later, his father died of [[pneumonia]]. His mother did not react well, or even sanely. She seemed unable to cope with her husband’s death and entered a stage of denial, which necessitated Eddie’s permanent return to the apartment in which he grew up. From here he returned to working at the pier doing exactly what he was doing before he went off to war. |
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He lived the next few decades alone with Marguerite. They lived simply, their “deep but quiet” love (p. 156) getting them through the drudgery of their everyday life. Unfortunately, Marguerite could not bear children, prompting them to routinely discuss the prospect of adoption. Eddie’s standard response was “we’re too old.” Marguerite’s rebuttal was “what’s too old to a child?” |
He lived the next few decades alone with Marguerite. They lived simply, their “deep but quiet” love (p. 156) getting them through the drudgery of their everyday life. Unfortunately, Marguerite could not bear children, prompting them to routinely discuss the prospect of adoption. Eddie’s standard response was “we’re too old.” Marguerite’s rebuttal was “what’s too old to a child?” |
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Revision as of 01:26, 19 August 2010
 Cover of the novel's first edition | |
| Author | Mitch Albom |
|---|---|
| Genre | Philosophical fiction |
| Publisher | Hyperion |
Publication date | 2003 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 196 |
| ISBN | 0786868716 |
| OCLC | 52619795 |
| LC Class | PS3601.L335 |
 | This article is written like a story. (April 2010) |
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He lived the next few decades alone with Marguerite. They lived simply, their “deep but quiet” love (p. 156) getting them through the drudgery of their everyday life. Unfortunately, Marguerite could not bear children, prompting them to routinely discuss the prospect of adoption. Eddie’s standard response was “we’re too old.” Marguerite’s rebuttal was “what’s too old to a child?”
They enjoyed their marriage together without a hitch until Eddie’s 39th birthday, when they fought over the phone as Eddie called Marguerite from the track to tell her of his winnings. To reconcile, Marguerite decided to drive to the track and apologize. But, along the way, she was involved in a gruesome car crash that landed her in the hospital for several months. After she was released, doctors found that she had a brain tumor. Marguerite died a few years later.
Eddie lived the rest of his life in remote solitude, keeping his job at Ruby Pier to keep him busy. He hobbled around the pier on his titanium-filled knee, a constant reminder of his time spent fighting in World War II. It is here that he meets his ultimate end, and the reader follows him throughout his exploration of the afterlife.
As a young boy, Eddie spent many summer days playing with his friends and older brother at Ruby Pier. While playing catch with his friends one afternoon, the baseball Eddie received for his most recent birthday is inadvertently thrown into the street. As Eddie scampers to retrieve it, he steps in front of a car. The driver, in a panic, swerves and narrowly avoids collision with one car then veers into an alley and crashes into the back of another car resulting in his death. Eddie escapes without a scratch.
In Eddie’s first stop in heaven, it is revealed that this was “The Blue Man,” or Joseph Corvelzchik. Joseph lived his life as an attraction in a freak show at Ruby Pier. He immigrated from Poland in 1894, and, like most immigrants of the time, struggled to get by financially. At the age of 10 he took a job working in a sweatshop sewing buttons onto coats. His father always told him to avoid eye contact with the foreman and to remain unnoticed. But, one day, he spills a pile of buttons all over the floor right in front of the foreman, who tells him that he is useless and must go. As his father pleads with the foreman to let him stay, Joseph soils himself in front of the foreman, his father, and the entire industry.
His father never forgave him. As the years passed, his nervousness and incontinence persisted, further humiliating him and disappointing his father. In an act of desperation, Joseph resorted to a primitive medicinal measure — drinking silver nitrate. As this, later considered to be poison, did not cure him of his ailments, he assumed he was not taking a high enough dosage. As he continued to ingest more and more silver nitrate, his skin began to change color (which he remedied by taking more silver nitrate), until eventually he was completely blue. He was left jobless after being fired from the sweatshop for scaring other workers. Eventually he found refuge with a group of carnival men, and his life as a “commodity” had begun. After traveling from carnival to carnival, he found permanent employment at Ruby Pier, where he was referred to as the best freak in the entire show. He lived above a sausage shop, playing cards at night with fellow circus performers and even occasionally Eddie’s father, earning his living by sitting in a cage all day, half dressed, as people walked by and stared in shock, awe, and sometimes, disgust.
He explains that when Eddie retrieved his ball from the street, although he was quite safe and sound, the Blue man wasn't. Eddie had given him a heart attack when he was driving due to a sudden halt and the Blue man was not mad at Eddie because of this, which confused Eddie. The Blue Man then taught Eddie his first lesson, that we are all somehow or another connected. Everything that we do affects what will happen to another. The Blue Man then tells him "Strangers are family you have yet to come to know", meaning that although they never met, what Eddie did affected his life from then on.
The Blue Man taught Eddie the following lesson: "There are no random acts; we are all connected."
When Eddie was shipped off to the Philippines during World War II, “The Captain” became Eddie’s commanding officer. He was a few years older than Eddie and his fellow men and had spent his life in the military, as did three generations of his family before him. His stern demeanor and quick temper were his most noticeable attributes. He made a promise to his men: no man gets left behind.
The Captain is the second person Eddie meets in heaven. Here, it is revealed that he was the one who shot Eddie in the leg, crippling him for life. However, unbeknownst to Eddie, the captain was actually saving his life, as Eddie was about to run into a burning hut, thinking he saw the shape of a small child burning in the ruins. Shortly after saving Eddie, the captain steps on a land mine and is killed. His lesson was about sacrifices.
The Captain has taught Eddie the following lesson: "Sacrifice is the noblest thing you can do."
As a young girl, Ruby worked at the Seaside Diner, a small diner neighboring what would become Ruby Pier that Eddie used to frequent before it was torn down years ago. She was a beauty back in those days, and as such turned down many men until a young businessman, Emile, sat down in her diner. Ruby did not have much money growing up, and as such was blown away by Emile’s monetary whimsicality. After sufficient courtship, Emile proposed to Ruby and she gleefully accepted. To capture her eternal youth and the everlasting happiness their marriage would undergo, Emile built an amusement park in her name: Ruby Pier.
Ruby, the third person he meets, goes on to tell Eddie about the near-complete destruction of Ruby Pier. For Independence Day, Emile hired extra workers and utilized fireworks to draw extra customers. However, some of the “roustabouts” were drinking one night and began setting off fireworks, causing a fire that almost burned the entire pier to the ground. In a frantic attempt to save his life’s work, Emile tried to extinguish the fire with buckets of water, and in the process was critically injured and ended up in the same hospital room with Eddie’s father. Because of this, she is able to recount to him his father’s final living moments to him. Ruby helps Eddie understand the importance of forgiveness.
Eddie met his wife, Marguerite, right before his 17th birthday. Having met her only once, he ran home to his older brother and proclaimed that one day she would be his wife. Although premature, this prediction turned out to be accurate. They wedded on the Christmas Eve following his return from the war, on the second floor of Sammy’s, a small Chinese restaurant. It was a simple wedding. Eddie used what little money he had from the army on their food (roasted chicken with Chinese vegetables) and entertainment (a man with an accordion).
They had a happy, loving marriage even though they could not have children. They were planning to adopt a child until the events of Eddie's 39th birthday. That day he won $800 at the track and called Marguerite to tell her the good news. However, she did not respond positively. Out of spite Eddie put all his winnings on the next race. Marguerite attempted to drive to the track to apologize for yelling at him on his birthday and to convince him to stop betting. On her way there, a couple of drunken kids dropped whiskey bottles off the freeway that landed on her car. This caused her to get in a car crash that lacerated her liver and broke her arm. The cost of the medical bills and her health issues made them ineligible to adopt.
After that tragic event, Eddie and Marguerite's marriage changed. They often sat in silence that was permeated by sullen tension. As time passed, however, they were eventually able to overcome their emotional disconnection and became loving companions once again. However, only a few years later, Marguerite died of a brain tumor. She was the fourth person Eddie met.
Marguerite teaches Eddie that, even though she had died, their love never went away; it just took a different form. Until Marguerite teaches him this, Eddie had felt as though she had been taken from him too early and that their love was torn to pieces.
During the war, Eddie was held captive in the Philippines by a troop of Japanese soldiers. After he and his fellow captives were able to escape, he set fire to their barracks. As he watched a straw hut burn to the ground, he thought he saw the shape of a small child inside and thought he heard screaming. Unsure if what he saw was real or a hallucination, he tried to run into the burning hut to save the child but was stopped, shot in the leg by his captain, thus saving Eddie's life. After talking with his Captain, Eddie believes he did have a hallucination and there was no child. However, when he meets Tala, his fifth person, she reveals to him that she was the shadow he saw run into the huts.
Tala allows Eddie to see that through his remorse and grief for his mistake that his life did have a purpose: to maintain the safety of each person that came to Ruby Pier. Because of Eddie's watchful eye when it came to maintaining rides, lives- born and unborn- were saved because he kept them safe.
Inspiration
The main character, Eddie, was actually based on Mitch Albom’s uncle Eddie. Both the fictional and real versions of Eddie were war veterans who died at 83 and lived simple lives, both feeling that they had not accomplished everything in life they should have. As a child, Albom listened to one of his uncle’s stories during Thanksgiving dinner. Eddie told him of a night when he went to the hospital with a raging fever. He awoke in the middle of the night, and sitting at the foot of his bed were dead relatives. Upon being asked by exuberant children what he did, Eddie replied: “I told them to get lost. I wasn’t ready for them yet.” After this, Albom began to think about the concept of heaven. Perhaps it was not a utopian paradise, but more of a place where you can gain insight into your life after you have died through people you have loved, encountered, or even never met, in your own words.[citation needed]
Film adaptation
A TV movie of the same name was made in 2004, starring Jon Voight as Eddie. Directed by Lloyd Kramer, the film was nominated for a Primetime Emmy amongst several awards. Other actors included Dagmara Dominczyk (Marguerite), Jeff Daniels (Blue Man), Ellen Burstyn (Ruby), Michael Imperioli (Captain), Steven Grayhm (young Eddie) and Callum Keith Rennie (Eddie's father).[1]
References
External links
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven at Albom's Official Website
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven at the Internet Book List
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven at IMDb