Tuesdays With Morrie is a true novel based upon an older dying man’s
outlook on life. Throughout the story, the older man teaches his past
student about life as his body is slowly withering away from the ” Lou
Gehrig’s Disease.”
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Morrie Schwartz (the older man) teaches his student,
Mitch Albom, what really matters in life. The only way that I can begin to
describe Morrie’s character, is to quote an excerpt from pg. 10 regarding his
reaction after being diagnosed:
” But my old professor had a profound decision, one he began to construct
the day he came out of the doctor’s office with a sword hanging over his
head.
Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?
He asked himself. He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Instead he would make death his final project, the center point of his days.
Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could
be research. A human textbook.
Study me in my slow and patient demise.
Watch what happens to me. Learn with me. Morrie would walk that final
bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip.”
Based on his decision not to wither up and die, and instead use his
dying, as an opportunity to teach others what truly matters in life, shows
how unselfish and positive he really was. Morrie didn’t see his time spent
ill as a waste, instead, he said, and I quote, ” I mourn my dwindling time,
but I cherish the chance it gives me to make things right.
” (Pg. 167) As a
way to further carry out Morrie’s wish to be useful, both Morrie and Mitch
decided to meet every Tuesday to study and discuss life’s greatest lessons.
Not only do we see evidence of Morrie’s character, we also see a change in
Mitch and his values. With Morrie as a guide, Mitch begins to understand
that money, and materialistic wealth, have less significance than things such
as relationships, forgiveness, and love.
IMAGERY: An excerpt from the book, which related to imagery, was what
Morrie referred to as detachment. As he was recovering from a violent
coughing spell, he began to explain to Mitch the ability to detach yourself
from your emotions.
He believed that experiencing life and the emotions that
go along with each situation were very important. Morrie explained to Mitch
that it was necessary to experience and feel your emotions fully rather than
ignore them or pretend that they don’t exist as so many of us do. This is
more fully explained in an excerpt from pg. 105:
” Morrie’s approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash
yourself with the emotion.
It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you
let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can
say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control
me. I see it for what it is.” “Same for loneliness: you let go, let the
tears flow, feel it completely-but eventually be able to say, “All right,
that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of feeling lonely, but
now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other
emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.
”
When Morrie detaches himself from his emotions, he is not simply ignoring
and blocking them, but experiencing them fully as well as separating himself
from them so that they will not control him. In this sense at least he can
slightly escape the fear of his emotions without fully ignoring them. Morrie
did not want to leave the world through a violent coughing spell, instead he
wanted to understand what was happening to him, find acceptance in it, and be
able to let go in a peaceful manner.
THEME: The theme of this book is about an old dying man who teaches his
young student .
