The Five People you meet in Heaven Reflective Essay One of the major themes in Mitch Albom’s novel The Five People you meet in Heaven is sacrifice; Albom portrays the themes throughout the novel in the form of life lessons. The novel’s protagonist Eddie learns five lessons from the people he comes into contact with in heaven. Eddie learns an important lesson about sacrifice when coming across the second person he meets in heaven known as The Captain; we learn that The Captain is an important figure in Eddie’s life as he was Eddie’s captain during his time in the army. My personal beliefs on sacrifice are that in order to do so you have to want to and not always sacrificing something because you feel obliged to. Sacrifices can range from small …show more content…
The Captain explains to Eddie that he needed to make this ‘sacrifice’ in order to give Eddie and the other the soldiers a chance to live, as if it weren’t for The Captain ending his own life Eddie and the other soldiers would have driven over the land mines and would have been killed instantly. The Captain tells Eddie “Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.”(98), this quote symbolises the idea that when you sacrifice something it may offer opportunities to others, Eddie realises that by The Captain bravely sacrificing his own life it gave Eddie and the other soldiers the opportunity to continue living. This instant of sacrifice really resonated with me even though the sacrifices I have made cannot even be compared to The Captain’s. A time when I have had to make a sacrifice was when I was given the opportunity to go on a school trip for the AZAC day memorial service, the trip was a once in a lifetime opportunity however I was unsure if I would be returning to my school when the trip took place as I was unhappy with my school but felt so fortunate to be given the opportunity to go on this trip especially since the deposit had already been paid. I ultimately decided to not go on the trip as I had already applied to other schools and even though in the end I was not accepted into any of the ones I applied to, I knew that there would be other opportunities in the future to be able to travel. It also meant that someone who missed out on the opportunity to go on the trip got a second
The novel, “Afterlife” by Gary Soto was mostly about how this guy named Chuy who was killed in a Club, Club Estrella to be specific. He was killed in the men’s bathroom for complimenting someone else’s shoes, which were yellow. He got stabbed 3 times, and was left there till dying. He then became a ghost, a ghost who couldn’t be heard, seen or touched. He could see everything that was going on, but couldn’t do anything about it. After the ambulance had taken him away, he was already dead, or i mean the body was already dead. When his parents got the news Chuy went to visit them to say one last goodbye, he also visited his school, and the girl he used to like for a long time. He then found this girl named Crystal, who had killed herself taking
The main theme of the a lesson before dying is sacrifice and how it can lead to better outcomes. A lesson before dying is a novel by Ernest Gaines that takes place in a fictional town in Louisiana in the 1940’s or pre-civil rights. One of the characters, Jefferson, is going to be put to death for a crime he did not commit, and the main character Grant is being forced by Jefferson’s godmother to teach him to be a man before he dies. Sacrifice is the act of giving up or surrendering a person or value for a better object but does it mean more than that in “A Lesson Before Dying”?
Change is constant with a society that is always recreating itself. From the Enlightenment period to the Industrial Revolution there is a massive difference when comparing these two societies of their norms and daily life.
Edwards goes through and talks about this verse and how people are risking their lives by a walk on the slippery slope of sin. Secondly, Edwards makes ten points about religion, sin, and God. He discusses that man lives at the mercy of God and that in the end, it is God alone who decided who belong in heaven or deserves to go to hell for eternity. In the final and the longest part, Edwards speaks directly to the sinners in his congregation and beyond. He describes the fires and pain of Hell and uses metaphors to help encourage his points. He reminds them that they are all simply “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”
The lesson that the Sargent had to teach Eddie was about sacrifice. “Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious you’re not really losing it, you’re just passing it on to someone else.” (94) In other words, the Sargent sacrificed Eddie’s leg to save his life, and he also sacrificed his life in order to preserve the lives of his
The author Mitch Albom incorporates sacrifice which is a big part of being a brothers keeper in The Five People you Meet in Heaven. Eddie was in war for a short period of time, during this time The Captain becomes his keeper because he shot himself in the leg to protect Eddie, as a captain he should have done this. He teaches him that grieving is the only way out of a tough situation, similar to the one he is in. Eddie does not recognize the reasoning behind why he did what he did. The Captain explains to Eddie, "Sacrifice, you made one. I made one. We all make them. But you are angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost… You didn’t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life." (Albom 93). By doing this it shows his bravery, loyalty and companionship towards Eddie. He shot Eddie in the leg so Eddie would not die in the burning tent. Even though he sacrificed his life for Eddies he was
Sacrifice is “an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else.” -Anonymous. The Outsiders, by H.E Hinton is a book where Ponyboy and friends live life in a gang. You can see sacrifices being made in order for them to better the lives of each other. One theme evident in the novel is people make sacrifices for the things they care about.
People will sacrifice their own for others. Everyone makes a sacrifice, whether it be today or a century ago. For instance, The Frank family and the Van Daan family in the Annex during the Holocaust. Mr. Frank, the
In his poem "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace," published in 1968, Richard Brautigan places the reader in a future realm: a sparkling utopia "where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony" (1). He draws us in by juxtaposing images of nature, man and machine that challenge us to imagine this new world. In essence, Brautigan's poem is a supplication for that dream world, but to the modern reader it can be a land of irony.
the benefits of this sacrifice are not confined to those who respond to it with an explicit act of faith” (Nash, 1994, p. 103). Nash breaks down the definitions and uses Scripture to back up his points very well.
The Captain says "Sacrifice, whether big or small, is not something to regret. We are only passing something on." When you let go of something you are not necessarily giving it up you are giving it to somebody else to put to use. I had to use this lesson myself when i'm thinking of someone i care about. If i can give my loved one what they need that i have , i'll gladly give it to them even if it is hard to part
Even more drastic, some tied in their religious beliefs and faith with their work ethic and/or national identity, which thought process Kierkegaard gives an example of: “How can you doubt that you are a Christian? Are you not a Dane…do you not perform you duties at the office like a conscientious civil servant; are you not a good servant of a Christian nation…so of course you must be a Christian.” Kierkegaard loathed how cold and detached the Christian faith had become, so he saw it fit that he remind people what being a Christian truly meant.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel written by Mitch Albom that tells the story of Eddie, a grumpy old man who goes to Heaven after he dies and learns the meaning of his past life as well as valuable life lessons along the way. In Heaven, Eddie meets five people who once crossed his path when he was alive who all teach him an important lesson that leads to Eddie eventually gaining peace and knowledge before the novel is complete. Throughout this novel, we learn everything that makes up Eddie’s character such as his physical and personality traits, his perspective on life, his values, and everything in between. Eddie is a loving, brave, and somewhat shy character who finds peace at the end of his journey in Heaven. These character
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel written by Mitch Albom that follows the life and death of a man named Eddie. Eddie was a war veteran and worked in maintenance at the Ruby Pier amusement park. Eddie felt he lived his whole life in the shadow of his father and ended up being just like him, working at this park. As the park changed overtime, so did Eddie. He went from an enthusiastic young-spirited man to a grumpy and regretful old man. On his 83rd birthday, Eddie died as a result of being crushed by a faulty ride at the park when he tried to save a little girl that was under it. When he dies, he is taken into heaven by two small hands and there he comes into contact with five people. These five people Eddie met in heaven were meant to explain and make sense of Eddie’s life on Earth. Each person drastically changed Eddie’s life forever even though he may not have known in at the time. Although three of those people were complete strangers to Eddie, they all greatly impacted his life and communicated a special life lesson to him.
The idea of survival is conveyed through character development in “The Five People You Meet In Heaven.” Survival is shown during the war, as Eddie has to go through fight after fight. According to the book, “The Five People You Meet In Heaven,” it states, “He learned the nervous cheer of a soldier’s first survived combat, when the men slap each other and smile as if it’s over - We can go home now! - and he learned the sinking depression of a soldier’s combat, when he realizes the fighting does not stop at one battle, there is more and more after that...” This shows that Eddie has to continue to endure all the battles, although he wants to go home. Since the war isn’t over, Eddie has to continue fighting in the war, and he has to continue to go through different problems of the war. Fighting and surviving in a war isn’t easy for him, as there’s an opposing side trying