Summary Of The Poem 'Into The Great Wide Open'

Not only does Tom Petty describe Eddie’s life, but he also uses a shifting tone in the story. The tone starts

Eddie steals a purse from an elderly lady. Manny was given a second chance by the black man. “In that instant of trying to call out to Eddie everything changed. It was like I’d seen my own fate.” (210) Manny said this because he realized that he is on the completely wrong path in life. Manny realizes that Eddie is starting to pick up character traits like his father and Manny cannot turn out to be like his own dad. Manny knows that he does not want to throw away his life so he turns it around because he knows what the outcome will be if he does not change.

He lost his hat, the one that he got from someone at his birthday party. He got offended by Mickey, giving him a punch on the arm. From this, the readers can understand that MIckey, the alcoholic Irishman, was not a good soul to Eddie. Mickey will probably became a part of a negative time period during Eddie’s life, and this could be the reason why the narrator introduced MIckey in this way not completely positive. Thirdly, “She puts his hat back on his head. Later, she will walk him along the pier, perhaps take him on an elephant ride, or watch the fishermen pull in their evening nets, the fish flipping like shiny, wet coins. She will hold his hand and tell him God is proud of him for being a good boy on his birthday, and that will make the world feel right-side up again” (Albom 25) In a lot of moments we read about Eddie, how he suffered much pain and misconstrued events throughout his life on earth: Eddie was searching for some kind of peace within himself, which he never found. However, here the love of the mom for his kid is shown, and the reader can definitely understand that Eddie’s mom cared deeply for Eddie and his brother, Joe, offering her sons a nurturing alternative to their abusive, alcoholic

Eddie’s journey begins with a passion to read books and write poems. When Eddie first opened up about this to his girlfriend Lupe, “then [she] told [him he] should be a writer” (Johnson 76). Lupe is the root of his love for literature. However, he cannot let his reputation - which

Eddie’s father influenced Eddie to be the chaperone in the family despite his age. At an early age he felt as though he had a financial responsibility, which influenced him to get a job as both a shoe-shiner and a paperboy. He describes his family’s structure as the father being the head of the family, and the mother as the heart. This helped create a balance within the family, but caused tension between Eddie and his father’s expectations. Eddie experienced two spheres of education, American school and Chinese school. “I loved going to American school, but Chinese school was another matter.” (Yung 25) He disliked the limited exposure of Chinese education, and felt that he had been exposed to a wider world in American school, which eventually led him to flunk out of school. This came as a disappointment to Eddie’s father, and added immense pressure to Eddie. The confinement he felt in Chinatown frustrated him, his overprotective mother crippled his adventurous-ambition and the pressure added by his father to lead the family caused him to runaway when at the age of 13. He

Eddie at the beginning of the story was hopeful that his career would succeed.Everything started going well for him, people said he played from the heart. He was starting to show that he had money, he got a leather jacket and and wore a chain. He made 1 record that went to the charts. When he went to hollywood he met a girl immediately and moved in with her. Not only that she taught him how to play the guitar which started his music career.Eddie started to become successful however when the A&R man told him that he doesn't hear a single. His music career was basically over, he had no idea what to do, he was confused. He was lost, he had no career when his A&R man fired him, he is “a rebel without a

     The next person that Eddie meets is his Sargent from the war. He tells Eddie about how he, the Sargent, died, and how that enabled the rest of the company to survive. He told Eddie that it had been him who had shot him, in order to save his life. Eddie had become convinced that he saw someone in a burning building, and to prevent Eddie from going in there and losing his life, the Sargent shot him in the leg.

This can be shown by, “Sure, he’s terrific!  Look at him go!” and “He could be very good Marco.  I’ll teach him again.”  By praising Rodolfo, he is making Rodolfo want to continue boxing with him.  Eddie shows more and more authority over Rodolfo and if they go boxing more, Eddie gets the opportunity to humiliate and embarrass Rodolfo more, and prove to everybody that he is stronger. The tension between the two characters is important, as it continues to grow stronger, until Eddie attacks Marco and Rodolfo.  This is important, as this is the point where the tension is first revealed obviously and directly to the reader, through physical actions, although not real violence. The audience may feel that there will be real violence later on in the play, as Eddie keeps encouraging Rodolfo to fight and continuously tries to insult him.

In the beginning of “Into the Great Wide Open” the song is very optimistic. Eddie meets a girl, rents an apartment, gets a job, and starts a music career. However, towards the end of the song, it becomes very sceptical. Eddie starts partying, spending money on clothes, and then the A and R man said “I don’t hear a single.”

When Eddie came home, he became more serious and somber. He completely lost touch with his old self, and completely changed his disposition. Thus, Eddie’s emotional and physical changes impacts the reader’s view of modern day conflicts.

“Into the Great Wide open,” tells about the ups and downs of a young rockstar. It all started when Eddie finished high school and moved to Hollywood. He got a tattoo and met a girl who had a tattoo too. They both bought a place they could both afford and he also got a job working at the door at the nightclub. She taught Eddie how to play guitar. The papers said he wrote his songs from the heart

Eddies first lesson is given to him by the Blue Man. The Blue Man says "We all have different perspectives on things; and there is no such thing as a random act; we are all interconnected." The relevance participates in this novel by things tend to happen, you can't change whats already been done. In my personal life, I learned this lesson when one of my friend's died. Death is something you can't prevent but wish you could. You can only mourn and let the pain in your heart slowly fade away.

can see the type of man Eddie is, as when he meets the brothers for

With Eddie being limitless on this drug he gains power over things and makes more money than he ever thought would be possible, which eventually conditions him into becoming even more dependent upon the drug.

In comparison, there is a similar key moment in Miller’s A View From the Bridge, where Eddie’s fate is partially decided upon one moment. After being humiliated by Marco, an already furious Eddie is told by Beatrice that what he can’t have, alluding to his niece Beatrice. This realization that his wife knows how he feel about their niece causes Eddie to go into a rage and to seek a fight with Marco even more vehemently. This ultimately results in Eddie being stabbed by his own knife, and dying. While it could be argued that in both cases, the ending was already inevitable, as Gar was practically set on leaving for Philadelphia, and Eddie was already out of control, I do not doubt that these two key moments had a massive impact on how the play was resolved.