Story Of Mitch Albom And Morrie Schwartz example essay topic

Tuesdays with Morrie Written by Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie is about an elderly man named Morrie Schwartz diagnosed in his seventies with Lou Gehrig's disease. Morrie has always lived his life in his own fashion, taking his path less stressful. And continues to do so until his dying day. One of his former students sitting thousands of miles away in Michigan stumbled upon this episode of "Nightline" on the television by chance and most likely by fate. This student, Mitch Album, decides to pay a visit to his favorite tutor in quiet suburb of Boston. As he was a professor of Sociology for many years, Morrie begins again to educate Mitch Album, in, what he calls, his "final thesis".

The old professor and the youthful student meet every Tuesday. As the disease progresses, Morrie shares his opinions on issues such as family, love, emotions, and aging. Although the cover of the book states "an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson", but the book actually provides numerous life lessons. Morrie Schwartz - Morrie is Mitch's favorite professor from Brandeis University, and the main focus of the book is Morrie, who now suffers from ALS, a weakening, incurable disease that destroys his body, but cruelly leaves him as intelligent as ever before. He had taught sociology at Brandeis, and continues to teach it to Mitch, enlightening him on 'The Meaning of Life', and how to accept death and aging.

After having a childhood with out much affection shown at all, he lives on physical contact, which is rather similar to a baby. He has a passion for dancing and music, and cries a lot, especially since the beginning of his disease. He doesn't hide his emotions, but he shares them openly with anyone, and stays in the same frame of thinking as he did before this fatal disease struck. Mitch Albom sees him as a man of absolute wisdom.

Janine - She is Mitch's patient wife who kindly takes a phone call from Morrie, whom she has never met, and urges Mitch to let her join him on his next Tuesday visit. Although she usually does not sing in public or when someone requests, she does for Morrie, and makes him tear with her beautiful voice. Mitch Albom - Morrie's former student at Brandeis University, and the narrator of the book. After forgetting about his dreams of becoming a famous musician, he is disgusted by they way the he wants financial success and wealth, though neither actually make him happy at all. He has been working himself nearly to death, and suddenly finds that he doesn't have a job when the staff at the newspaper he works for decides to go on strike. Each Tuesday, he learns from Morrie, his that he needs to change his life and his thought process, and to value love more than money, and happiness more than success.

Peter - Peter is Mitch's younger brother who lives in Spain. Peter flies to many European cities looking for treatment for his pancreatic cancer, but he refuses any help from his family, and by doing so he has made himself seem like a total stranger from lack of contact. He is "too busy" when Mitch first tries to remake a relationship with him, but eventually warms up. Charlotte - This is Morrie's caring wife, who, following Morrie's wishes keeps her job as a professor at M.I.T. throughout Morrie's illness. This story of Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz illuminates many truths that are known throughout the world, including this law of nature. Morrie's illness and death gives Mitch a perspective that immediately changes his life.

The success that caused him to neglect the most important things becomes the way to send Morrie's message to all the people who need reminders of what those things are. For example: Happening: A newspaper strike takes Mitch out of his job as a writer and makes him question his ability to survive without something that he feels is his 'lifeline... when I saw my stories in print each morning, I knew that, in at least one way, I was alive. ' Reaction to the happening: After a week of sitting home and watching TV, Mitch calls his old friend Morrie and begins a new 'lifeline'. This one is stronger than the others he's had before, It's based on what's going on inside Mitch's heart and his head rather than what's happening at work. Morrie says a quote by his favorite poet, W.H. Auden, to include one of his most important lessons to Mitch: When we are without love, there is an emptiness that can only be filled by loving relationships. When people are in love, Morrie says a person can experience no bigger feeling of fulfillment.

Throughout his fourteen Tuesday lessons with Mitch, Morrie mentions that love is the spirit of every person, and every relationship, and that to live without it as Auden says is to live without anything at all. The importance of love in his life is especially clear to Morrie as he gets closer to his final days because he realizes that if he were without the care of those that he loves, and who love him, he would die. Morrie hopelessly tires to live, not because he is afraid of dying or because he fears what he will see in the afterlife, but because his greatest dying wish is to share his story with Mitch so that he can share it with the world. Morrie lives just long enough to share the basis of his story, then releases himself, leaving Mitch with the message that love brings experience, and without it, he may as well be dead. In his sort of mission to accept his upcoming death, Morrie consciously 'detaches himself from the experience' when he suffers his violent coughing spells, all of which could most possibly be his lasts breaths. Morrie get his method of detachment from the Buddhist philosophy: One should not cling to things, as everything that exists is impermanent.

In detaching, Morrie is able to step out of his material surroundings and into his own type of world where he has time to relax and think more about the type of world that his loved ones live in. Morrie does not intend to stop feeling this detachment, but instead he wants to experience it wholly because it is only then that he is able to let go, to think about something other than the stressful situation that he is in. He does not want to die feeling upset, and in these frightening moments, he detaches himself so that he may accept the short span of his life and accept his death, which he knows may come at any time. Morrie's are the most basic lessons, but in a world full of suspicion, consumerism, and ostracized people, they need to be given again and again: We all should take time to stare out the window instead of at your computer screen. Have a laugh.

It's natural to die. Love is how you stay alive.