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Who Is Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie?

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Every story has two sides and the story of Morrie Schwartz journey through ALS and his eventual death is no exception. Morrie’s story was received and translated by many, but the two that made the most impact can be found on the opposite spectrum of one another. Tuesdays With Morrie is a short novel that was published in 1997 and written by Mitch Albom, a, at the time, sports writer. Albom had been taught by Morrie throughout his college career and they two developed a close friendship that didn’t last once graduation had passed. The Nightline News program first heard about Morrie Schwartz through a Boston Globe article that happened to pass across a producer on the show. Starting in March of 1995, Ted Koppel began a series of news segments …show more content…

Due to Mitch’s history with Morrie as a professor, Tuesdays with Morrie is organized as a literal last class. Chapters are titled with academic names such as “The Curriculum” and “The Syllabus” and each Tuesday that they meet has a certain lesson including “The First Tuesday, We Talk About the World”, “The Third Tuesday, We Talk About Regrets” and “The Fourth Tuesday, We Talk About Death”. This organization connects to the past relationship that Morrie and Mitch has as student and teacher. It also has more meaning since Mitch is seeking to learn more about how to live his life in the way in order for him to get the most out of it. The Nightline Interviews are set up in a much more formal way since they’re meant to be a series of interviews for a national viewing audience. Three interviews are conducted between Morrie and Ted Koppel, all taking place in Morrie’s house. In all of the interviews, Morrie appears in sweatshirts and lounging in a chair, while Koppel is in a suit and tie, retaining the professionality in the interviews. Over time, the interviews become more informal with Morrie and Koppel chatting freely during the interviews, like old friends, and Koppel helping Morrie put his glasses on during the final interview. The organization between the two are drastically different and offer no …show more content…

Tuesdays With Morrie gives a more overall portrayal of Morrie, going into his past, such as his relationship with his mother and father, and showing him throughout his life, as a young child to a fresh professor to an aged teacher. This portrayal is much more well rounded and developed compared to Nightline’s very brief history of Morrie, while the interviews do give a more firsthand description of Morrie’s aphorism since they come directly from him without any commentary from Mitch. However, Tuesdays With Morrie gives a more complete portrayal of Morrie, despite the bias that could be towards Morrie since Mitch has such a high respect for

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