Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom | Teen Ink

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

January 14, 2010
By Bella-Faye GOLD, Oxford, Massachusetts
Bella-Faye GOLD, Oxford, Massachusetts
11 articles 7 photos 20 comments

Favorite Quote:
“There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout:
This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.
When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.”


Tuesdays with Morrie is an enriching tale about the interactions between a struggling young man and an old man facing certain death. Tuesdays With Morrie was written by Mitch Albom and is also narrated by Mitch Albom. The book is an account of the final months of Morrie's life and how Morrie affected Mitch during that time.


Tuesdays With Morrie was much different than many of the other books I have read. Unlike other books, this is told by the person it happened to, sort of like a memoir. In between the actual events of the main story line there are small flashbacks into both Morrie and Mitch's past that help give background information. These flash backs are placed before and after each chapter and adds substance to the story line. The setting was also very unique and important to the situation.



The setting of Tuesdays with Morrie takes place in Morrie's own home. The fact that the entire story takes place only in Morrie's home intensifies the fact that Morrie is so sick that it is not possible for him to move about and get out of his home. In my own perspective it felt like Morrie was a prisoner in his own home, held captive by his sickness but his heart was still free.



Morrie's morals are what makes him such an amazing person. He refuses to acquiesce to the social parameters that the world has set for itself. He feels that every one person should be just that- an idiosyncratic person, set apart from everyone else by what he or she is. Through all of Morrie and Mitch's meeting this seems to be what Morrie is mainly trying to teach Mitch, he is trying to make him see that to be both happy and successful you have to break away from the mainstream and become who you truly are.



The part in this novel that had the most impact was during a flash back that Mitch had when he was at Morrie's funeral. Mitch and Morrie had been talking about death and this is what was said:

“You'll come to my grave? And tell me your problems?”

My problems?

“Yes”

And you'll give me answers?

“I'll give you what I can, don't I always?”

It won't be the same, not being able to hear you talk.

“Ah, talk...” “Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I'll listen.”



This part of the novel had an effect on me because it shows that Morrie is a bit afraid of death, afraid that no one will remember him. To me it signifies that even though Morrie will be dead, there is no reason why Mitch cannot still talk to him, acknowledge him, and remember him. Morrie will always be there, if not in substance but in spirit, always listening and always teaching even after his death.



Tuesdays With Morrie is a book that every one should read. It is the story of an old, dying professor and how he impacts a struggling young man even when he was dying. It is a story of love, and lose, of confusion and of learning. Morrie had a special light within himself, that continues shine even through his death.


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