Preview

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
373 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. As the park has changed over the years -- from the Loop-the-Loop to the Pipeline Plunge -- so, too, has Eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret.
Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his -- and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where five people who were in it explain your earthly life to you. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.
One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure? The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.
These five meetings -- some of which are with people who are strangers to Eddie, others with people he knows intimately -- take this gruff but gentle man through the different stages of his life, and through each new person, some hidden truth is revealed. As Albom unfolds Eddie's story, he gradually sheds light on the web of connections between each individual and a world of strangers, so that life is revealed not as a straightforward story of what we have achieved but as a vast network, too large for us to perceive clearly from the inside. This theme, running throughout The Five People You Meet in Heaven, makes a perfect starting point for discussions of how these hidden linkages are at work in our own lives.
I personally loved this book; I am so happy that it was included on our reading list. It just gave me

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    When We Were Two Analysis

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “I imagine him laughing… by the time the water reaches my waist, Eddie’s gone.” (Pg 182). This quote is taken from the novel at a time when Dan is in mourning, and, contemplating this quote, it is evident that despite his aching and longing, despite his intense pain, Dan is learning; he is learning to let Eddie go. “I feel strangely calm… while Eddie lies dead… I can feel him inside me, peaceful at last.” (Pg 185) This quote precisely expresses just how Eddie’s death was constructive to Dan’s development as a character, as it taught Dan to move on. This quote demonstrates that Dan has at last gained control over his emotions and that he has, through the death of Eddie, understood the hope there is in rest, in resolution, in peace. Eddie’s death, although tragic and heartrending, was vital to Dan, and despite the pain it caused, or perhaps because of the pain it caused, his death allowed Dan to develop and strengthen as a…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The thought provoking novel the five people you meet in heaven, portrays that after life is lost, not all is over; people go to heaven to get closure on the life they lived on earth. After death, the main character of the story while in heaven, Eddie, meets five people whose own lives were ultimately affected by his decisions. Through these five people, Eddie's life and meaning on earth gets explained to him. Whether those five people were family or complete strangers, all lives are inter-connected. The novel the five people you meet in heaven, by Mitch Albom, demonstrates how there are consequences to every action, whether being intentional or unintentional; this can be seen through sacrifice, regret and forgiveness.…

    • 1526 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This is shown when Eddie flashbacks to him as a young boy on the beach with his faterh.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Five People You Meet in Heaven written by Mitch Albom, is about an old, crippled war veteran named Eddie. Eddie was raised by an abusive, drunk of a father and a caring mother who with all her love for her son did not interfere when Eddie’s father was abusing him. Eddie grew up resenting his father. He carried hate around with him as if it were his ID. The only true happiness Eddie found in life was his wife Marguerite. Eddie worked at Ruby Pier as the maintenance man for the majority of his adult life. In the time he wasn’t at the pier he was shipped off with a rifle to participate in World War II. While working at the pier Eddie suffered a tragic death when trying to remove a little girl from harm’s way. It was when he died that his story began and he met five people in heaven.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eddie remembers how he would spend each of his birthdays with Marguerite. The narrator says “Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now,but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her” (Albom 184). What Eddie is really thinking about is the time that he spent with Marguerite before she passed away and how much he had enjoyed every second with her. In “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant he states “Thou shalt lie down with the kings of the infant world” (Bryant 33-34). This line reflects on how we will all be united when we die so that people can make up for lost time on earth. “Thanatopsis” nostalgic view promotes the idea that all people will be reunited. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven , however the nostalgia stems from deep memories that provide an idea of the sacrifice needed to be reunited with those who have passed…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The character then follows a vicious path of revenge after realising that is was Eddie that…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ruby Bridge Analysis

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Eddie's first meeting in Heaven harkens back to the days of his youth, playing at Ruby Pier as a young boy. Running to retrieve a ball thrown into the street one day, he stepped in front of a…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Eddie Adams Shipway

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages

    He brought many ugly truths of the world to life with his photographs. His pictures evoke an array of emotions, anywhere between sorrow and pain to joy and happiness. This is why i think that Eddie’s work is so…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the story told by Arthur Miller, we can see that the behaviour of Eddie plays a role in his death. He could have had a common life but the tragedy comes from the combination of different events which are linked.…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Eddie is the central character in The Five People You Meet In Heaven. Eddie, who has consistently seen his life as a waste and unimportant, passes away on his 83rd birthday in a mishap while attempting to spare a young girl's life. Eddie is taken to heaven and meets five individuals who demonstrate to him that there was more worth to his life than what he thought there…

    • 69 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The fourth person Eddie meets is his wife Marguerite. She has chosen a wedding place to stay in heaven. Eddie meets her being young as she was when they got married. She teaches him the fourth lesson; love does not have an end. When people die, love takes a different form, that's all.…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The title of the book we read is The 5 People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. Throughout the part of the story we read we follow Eddie through some of his journey in heaven. He meets his captain and learns new things throughout the war, including who he was shot by. Both the story and the movie show Eddie discovering his own grave, with a picture of Marguerite inside his helmet. Also, in both the movie and the book, Eddie has to climb up a tree to find the captain. The last similarity is that Eddie gets shot in the leg, to save his life. The book, unlike the movie, showed the captain as a mean man. In the movie, he didn’t seem as mean. The last difference is that Eddie asks a lot of questions in the book, in the movie he doesn't ask very…

    • 167 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I heard about this book for a while. It sounded interesting and I was hearing really good things about it. So when it arrived in my PO I couldn’t wait to read it.…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A few months after his recovery, Colton began to make strange comments, and the family eventually realizes that he saw heaven, while he was in surgery. At first the parents couldn’t believe him, but as months and years went by, he continued to tell them about Jesus and what heaven was like. Colton talked about things that he couldn’t have known at his age. He describes the thrones, Jesus, and all the angels.…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the book, The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, is a books about a man that meets his old captain in heaven and her learns some things from him he didn't know. He also got to go through his memories of all he went through in war. In the movie it was told just a little different. Some differences were that in the movie 2 men were shot but in the book only one man was shot. Another difference was that in the book they were in an underground coal mine and never got to see the outside for many years but in the movie they were in an outside mine and they saw sunlight everyday. Some similarities are that he was juggling and through rocks at the guards to stop they so they could kill the guards. Another similarity is when they got…

    • 216 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays