Analyzing Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie is about a professor and his previous student, who share one last class together. A wise professor, Morrie Schwartz, finds out he is dying in his late sixties to Lou Gehrig’s Disease, commonly known as ALS. Morrie is refusing to give up his life to ALS, but instead is reaching out to everyone who he has come in contact with over the years. The story is told through the eyes of Mitch Albom, a previous student of Morrie’s. Mitch includes a background story in order to give the reader an understanding on how his close-knit relationship started with his professor. Most of the story takes place during present time, sixteen years after he has graduated from college.
Mitch lived a mediocre life. He had a great paying job, was

known as a workaholic who never paid much attention to his wife. He had been a very successful man, but he was unhappy. One night as he was watching the ABC show, “Nightline”, he came across a familiar face that he had not seen for sixteen years, his professor, Morrie. Mitch found out the serious disease that Morrie was diagnosed with and decided to get back in touch with his beloved professor. They begin to spend every Tuesday with one another. Mitch complies a list with what he believes are some of the important things about life. The list includes; friendship, death, love, forgiveness and feelings. As they meet each week, Mitch notices Morrie’s body rapidly deteriorating. Mitch becomes very worried about the time he has left with his special friend. Being such an impassive person himself, seeing his friend in such horrible shape alerts him that he needs to make a change. Mitch starts to make an effort to see his professor more in order to make his last few months bearable.
When Mitch comes the first day, Morrie wastes no valuable time with Mitch and gets right to the point. “Shall I tell you what it’s like?”(29). Morrie asks Mitch, he wants to share what it’s like to be dying. As each Tuesday continues, Morrie continues to come up with questions like that based off the topic of the day. These questions keep Mitch on the edge of his seat and challenges him to think outside the box in order to understand the true meaning of the lesson being taught.
As each Tuesday class passes, Mitch sees how bad Morrie is getting and he decides to bring in a tape recorder to record every one of their tuesday sessions. This serves as a learning technique and also a comfort aspect for Mitch. Some of the lessons dig deep into Mitch’s family tree. A certain lesson, family, sparks a discussion about Mitch’s younger brother. His brother has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the same cancer as Mitch’s favorite uncle was taken by. Instead of his brother opening up to his family and asking for help or support, he kept to himself. He fought the battle in Spain, where he lived and cut off all connections with his family. He didn’t need their help, so instead the family went on with their daily routines like nothing was wrong.
On the fourteenth Tuesday, Morrie passes away and Mitch said his final goodbyes. This gives Mitch a final recollection of all the things Morrie did for him and how grateful he was to have a friend who ared about him that much. Whether that was sixteen years ago in college to present day, Mitch took in every lesson Morrie ever taught him and wanted to change for the better.
Tuesdays with Morrie is about Morrie. Morrie is a wholesome man who challenges the ideas about happiness. He believes happiness isn’t based on the materialistic things but, rather the emotional or irreplaceable things in life. The unique quality about Morrie is whoever he meets, he always leaves them feeling wanted and like their voice is being heard. Morrie’s motto is “love each other or perish” a line he borrowed from his favorite poet, W.H. Auden. This is a critical point to exercising the lesson of love is the secret to giving life meaning. This was shown through his childhood when all he wanted was loved from his father since his mother’s passing. This didn’t occur until his father married a new woman who then showed Morrie the love that he was missing. Through all of the lifetime events he’s been through, he takes in each experience and turns it into a life lesson. The lesson of love through his family, the lesson of forgiveness with his friend Norman. This makes me lean towards Morrie more as a person because I feel like in some ways, I reflect him as a person. Morrie has this sense in finding the good in every situation and intends to make everyone feel wanted just as I do.
There are two of Morrie’s aphorisms that I believe to be most important to me.

The first one is “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live”(82). This comes from the lesson of death, It shows me that I don’t need to hover over the things that aren’t most important in life. You need to accept the fact that you will pass on and it’s just apart of life. Once you understand that you will learn how to embrace life for what it gives off. The other lesson is, “Learn to detach”(103). This idea was given during the emotions lesson. It tells us that we need to indulge in life’s greatest moments with no strings attached. This will give us the full experience without hesitation in order not to leave out any particular points to be learned. The design of Tuesdays with Morrie makes it easier to follow along on the lessons that Morrie is teaching Mitch in their last session of ‘class’. Morrie’s aphorisms are most easily found under the chapters that are labeled the lessons. This makes you remember what his aphorism really means and how it connects with the lesson that he taught. The overall moral aspect of the book is straightforward, Morrie’s lessons to Mitch are lessons he was taught throughout life. He has not only been through his own teaching but, he has also seen the effects of that specific experience has had on him. He only wants what's best for people so he teaches Mitch the critical points in order to live his life happily and in

full.
What I have learned from Tuesdays with Morrie is to “detach myself”. Experience things in a sense that it was my last day or my one and only chance to experience it. This gives you a true understanding of what that experience will give you in return. I learned being selfless instead of selfish will lead a happier life, Think of it this way, it’s a lot more enlivening to celebrate with another person on their success then celebrating by yourself on your own success. This is most apparent when I’m playing soccer with my teammates. We won not only because of one person, but all together as a team. Those group experiences will always override the accomplishments I earned myself, they will be more memorable. What makes this story a bestseller and special is that it’s real, it’s genuine. It speaks from experience and has facts backing it up on the outcomes. Most people are puzzled on the bigger things in life like money and power, this book is focused on the smaller things in life like family and how the way of life works. Once the money and power are gone, what will you have left and who will stick by your side? You’ll ask yourself if you’re happy and the answer nine times out of ten will be no if you focus on things like that. The true happiness if through a person's family and friends. Morrie expresses this in the book with his family. Morrie is known as a great professor but, he is more proudly distinguished by his greatest accomplishments, his wife and kids. This let’s me focus on the things that aren’t materialistic but, rather on the things that make me genuinely happy and that will continue to make me happy when all else fails.