Tuesdays with Morrie is a very elegant book that will grab anyone who picks it up. The book is meant to inform the audience of “life’s greatest lessons.” I believe this message is that everyone has the opportunity to turn their life around and to live it to the fullest they can, but they just have to want to in order to fulfill it. This message is very strong and it's shown throughout the whole book.
Mitch Albom made a wonderful story line of his past teachers life expressing it deeply through aphorisms that express “life's greatest lessons.” An example of one from the book states, “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”(pg 82)I think this aphorism is very strong because its saying when you have death staring at you, you then realize all the wrong you have done in this world and that you should try and fix them before it’s too late. This quote from the book shows you that you should turn your life around before it’s too late and you have no time left.
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At the beginning Mitch was always confused, work driven, emotionless and unsatisfied with a passage of the book stating, “What happened to me?” “...I have been in Detroit for ten years now, at the same workplace, using the same bank, visiting the same barber. I was thirty-seven, more efficient than in college, tied to computers and modems and cell phones”(pg 34). He did not know what had happened to his life, but he knew he had to turn it around, and this he did do by the end of the book. Another passage from the book states, “I blinked back the tears, and he smacked his lips together and raised his eyebrows at the sight of my face. I like to think it was a fleeting moment of satisfaction for my dear old professor: he had finally made me cry” (pg 186). This was a big turning point in Mitch's live because he had finally let out his feelings and he knew his life was going to be different from this point
When Mitch sees Morrie on TV, he couldn’t believe it. Mitch also got mad, and when the person was trying to get the congestion out of him, he asked if he could try and was hitting Morrie pretty hard. He was angry at the disease and needed to get out his frustration. Mitch was bargaining by saying “I’d give all of this knowledge and experience back if it meant you weren’t dying”. He also was depressed and asked Morrie “what if we can’t learn to die” and “what’s the point” and “I don’t want you to die”.
The theme of this novel is to look at the good you do in life and how it carries over after your death. The moral of the book is; "People can make changes in their lives whenever they really want to, even right up to the end."
Most of Tuesdays with Morrie consists of replays of conversations between Mitch and his former teacher, Morrie. This may seem like a pretty boring topic, yet Mitch Albom felt the need to write this book. Mitch could have easily just gone to visit his old professor, chatted with him, and left it at that. Why do you think that Mitch Albom felt the need to share his story? What do you spend money on and how can you save for things? What does society teach us about money, wealth, and greed?
“Learn to live a little!” Most people have heard this expression, but learning to live isn’t to just stop taking life seriously, it’s about learning how to die. This aphorism of learning how to die is how you learn to live is used again, and again throughout the book, “Tuesdays with Morrie”. First, Morrie shows how he learned how to live after dealing with ALS, which will slowly kill him. Second, people who are afraid and scared of death are the ones who will have unsatisfied and envious lives. Finally, The fact of how learning to die also has people become less ambitious about their job and becoming really wealthy, but instead focusing more on personal connections and relationships. In “Tuesdays with Morrie”, Mitch Albom
Morrie is Mitch's favorite professor from Brandeis University, and the main focus of the book is Morrie, who now suffers from ALS, a weakening, incurable disease that destroys his body, but cruelly leaves him as intelligent as ever before. He had taught sociology at Brandeis, and continues to teach it to Mitch, enlightening him on "The Meaning of Life", and how to accept death and aging. After having a childhood with out much affection shown at all, he lives on physical contact, which is rather similar to a baby. He has a passion for dancing and music, and cries a lot, especially since the beginning of his disease. He doesn’t hide his emotions, but he shares them openly with anyone, and stays in the same frame of thinking as he did before this fatal disease struck. Mitch Albom sees him as a man of absolute wisdom.
Although Mitch does not have a main role in A Street Car Named Desire, he is certainly not a two dimensional character like Pablo or Steve. He is presented as a three dimensional character because throughout the play the audience develops a sympathetic bond with him through learning of his back story and then through the way Tennessee William’s describes his character, ‘with awkward courtesy’ this paints the picture of someone who is trying to do what is best but fails in his attempts. It also has the effect of showing the audience that Mitch was unlike the other men in the play as he is not as confident or crude and animalistic in behaviour especially compared to Stanley who William describes as having ‘animal joy implicit in his being’.
Which is why he falls under Erikson’s theory of identity achievement. Identity achievement is when a person understands who he or she is as a unique individual, in accord with past experiences(Berger pg 356). Morrie understands who he is completely so he decides to give advice on life issues that most people go through while Mitch records him. During one session Mitch asked Morrie what his perfect last day would be and he gave it in complete detail from start to finish, it started off having a lovely breakfast, then going for a swim, have some lunch with friends, sit around and tell each other how much they meant to one another, go to dinner and have pasta and duck, then dance until he was exhausted, then go home and fall asleep. He had lived his life too the fullest and he knew exactly how he would want to spend his last day.
With the threatening reality of Morrie’s illness looming overhead, Mitch must learn from him just how necessary it is to live life to the fullest. Mitch was living an empty life, a life lacking fulfillment and love. Morrie explained this in a quote “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things.” He also explained, “The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” Morrie helps Mitch lead a life consisting of love and happiness rather then material possessions. Morrie taught Mitch to live with the key ingredients of happiness and gave him understanding about what those ingredients are, and how to make them apart of his life.
His perceptual accentuation of himself was that he was stuck in a monotonous routine and that he felt he would stay trapped in if he did not take drastic measures. Mitch felt that he no longer was individual but a man that did things only for his wife and kids. He expressed to his friends how carefree his childhood was and how as he had got older life had progressively gotten more stressful. This was an implication of how
She notices a bit of “sensitivity” in him that makes him different from the others. They start with small talk till they have enough trust to begin talking about more serious topics like their past and important things they would like to share with each other. Mitch does not know Blanche is not all there. He begins to talk about his ill mom with her, they later get into the “love” topic and she begins to explain about her past marriage. She explains to him the reason for his death while they were both very young and mitch can't help but to feel sorry for her.
2. What causes Mitch and Blanche to take a "certain interest" in one another? That is, what is the source of their immediate attraction? What seems to draw them together? What signs are already present to suggest that their relationship is doomed/problematic?
It connects with the novel because, in the beginning, Mitch was a busybody; He did not really care about all the things around him other than his work. After meeting Morrie, he became more focused on the important things in life and in a sense became a better
One such aphorism is “What of today was my last day on Earth?” This really hits me hard, because if today was my last day on Earth, I would die full of regrets and unfulfilled dreams. I am young, so I don’t contemplate death all that much. I still have many years to do everything I want to do. If I died today, I wouldn't be able to go to college or get my first job.
One lesson Morrie teaches Mitch is about the view his culture has and how we, not only Mitch but also the rest of the world, should not believe what they say. Morrie tells Mitch: “Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now — not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry — there is nothing innately embarrassing about them. It's the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it.”
Morrie has a disease call ALS, where it shuts down the whole body slowly mostly leaving people to suffer. There is no cure for this disease and if one is to have the disease they will not live. So Morrie meets up with one of his former college student and start talking again. With that happening, Morrie tries to teach Mitch important lessons in life and Morrie still tries to find a way to stay positive.