This Educator’s Guide is written to aid 10th through 12th grade teachers teach Mitch Albom’s best-selling book The Five People you Meet in Heaven. The Guide is divided into 6 subjects, and includes discussion questions and vocabulary words. Answers are provided only for the “Themes” and “Five People” sections of the Language Arts and Reading Comprehension subject heading.
Ellen S. Bakalian, a writer who holds a doctorate in English and American Literature from New York University, prepared the guide.
Overview
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, written in 2004 by Mitch Albom, is a story about an amusement park mechanic named Eddie who dies trying to save a little girl. The book begins by detailing Eddie’s movements during his last hour alive. Albom writes that although it “might seem strange to start a story with an ending…all endings are also beginnings” (1). When Eddie dies he finds himself in heaven, where he soon learns that he will meet five people who will explain to him the meaning of his life.
I. Language Arts and Reading Comprehension
Setting:
1. Ruby Pier is an amusement park, not a modern-day American theme park. What are the differences between Ruby Pier and today’s theme parks?
2. Encourage your students to research an amusement park located on a pier. Report findings in front of the class. (Suggested leads: When was it built? Is it still operational? How has it managed to remain viable? Or, what brought about its demise?)
Protagonist:
1. Eddie exists in a “weary state of acceptance” (5). Explain what Albom means by this statement. How did Eddie come to be in this state?
2. The author divulges important information about Eddie’s life by detailing 15 of his birthdays. How does this interesting device illuminate Eddie’s character? Do you like Eddie? Why or why not?
3. What does Eddie’s relationship with Dominguez reveal about his character?
4. Talk about (in groups or as a classroom exercise) what you know about Eddie.
5. Encourage your students to talk about Eddie’s volatile relationship with his father. How does it affect their opinions about Eddie?
6. Albom writes: “People say they ‘find’ love, as if it were an object by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love” (155). Discuss Albom’s idea of love. What kind of love did Eddie and Marguerite share?
7. When Eddie is with Marguerite, he “as always…mostly wants to freeze time” (78). Ask your students if they have ever experienced a moment that they want “to freeze.” List the moments and discuss as a class.
8. Albom quite ably stirs up his reader’s emotions. How does the author accomplish this? What techniques do writers use to draw in their readers?
9. What are Eddie’s first sensations of being in heaven?
Themes:
1. List the themes in the story. (Love; “No story sits by itself”(10); the circular nature of life; learning to live nobly and well, learning to be a better person/husband/wife/, learning to be “loyal to one another” (138) because life is circular, it all comes back.)
2. Detail how Albom sustains the themes throughout the book.(Through hindsight, flashbacks. We are given insight into Eddie’s life through both the stories each of the Five People teach him, and the birthdays.)
3. Is one theme more pronounced than the next? (All the themes are interconnected — the circular nature of life.)
4. Trace the cause for the malfunction of Freddy’s Free Fall ride to Eddie’s death. What does the cause of Eddie’s death have to do with the theme of the book? (The ride’s cable snapped because a car key had fallen into exactly the wrong place “at a most precise moment” (17). Over time, the cable scraped up against a locked pulley until it was completely severed. Nicky, to whom the key belonged, is the great-grandson of Ruby. The act of dropping the car key links Nicky to Eddie; as the Blue Man tells Eddie “we are all connected” (48).)
5. Explore Albom’s method of viewing the same story “from two different angles” (42). How does this technique strengthen the book’s themes? (This technique allows the reader to ponder how his/her actions affect others, to realize that one’s choices do affect others, sometimes quite seriously. It reinforces Albom’s message of the circular nature of life.)
6. Engage your class in a discussion about chance and free will. Use the Blue Man’s conversation with Eddie as a starting point. (The Blue Man tells Eddie that there are “no random acts,” and that fairness “does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die so young” (48). Eddie’s actions as a young man unknowingly killed the Blue Man. Is this fair?)
7. Discuss the book’s themes in relation to Eddie’s last act on earth – that of saving the child. (All the book’s themes are apparent in Eddie’s last act on earth. There are no random acts – the car key caused the accident that in turn kills Eddie, who sacrifices his life for the little girl’s. During the war, even in the act of murdering his captives, Eddie had love and compassion for others – he thought he saw a movement in the hut and so, driven by the power of love(he had already miraculously let go of the anger he harbored for his captors), he investigated the hut, despite the fact that his body was aflame.)
Five People:
1. Who are Eddie’s five people? (1. Blue Man; 2. the Captain; 3. Ruby; 4. Marguerite; 5. Tala.)
2. List the lessons Eddie’s Five People teach him. (1. Blue Man: no random acts/circular nature of life. Blue Man tells Eddie that “the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect” (48). 2. The Captain: when you lose something, you gain something else. “Sacrifice is a part of life”, the Captain tells Eddie (93). “Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else (94). 3. Ruby: let go of anger. In Ruby’s words: “Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves” (141). 4. Marguerite: Although life ends, love endures; the power of love. 5.Tala: Eddie’s life had a purpose; he kept children safe at the pier.)
3. Is it possible that Eddie’s Five People each teach him more than one lesson? (Yes, it is possible that each person taught Eddie more than one thing. Allow your class to bring up their own ideas.)
4. Tala taps into Eddie’s deepest core when she asks him why he is sad. How does Eddie respond? (He “surrender[s] all barriers” and tells her that he “didn’t do anything with his life,” that he “accomplished nothing” (191).)
5. What did Eddie accomplish with his life? (He made the rides safe for countless numbers of children, children who, because they did not die at Ruby Pier, lived happy lives with their families. Eddie looks down and sees the children on the pier alive “because of the simple, mundane things [he] had done in his life, the accidents he had prevented, the rides he had kept safe…” (192).)
6. Tala tells Eddie that he saved the little girl’s life. Discuss the symbolism of the child’s rescue. (Eddie ended his life doing what he had done with his entire life: saving a child. It is fitting that the child lived; it is his atonement for burning Tala. Despite everything that Eddie experienced and happened to him in his lifetime, he is ultimately a good-hearted person who has taken the deepest meaning of love into his soul: he cares for other people more than he does his own life.)
II. American History and Geography
1. Eddie fought in World War II. When was WW II? When did the USA get involved?
2. Who were our allies?
3. Locate the Philippines Islands on a map.
4. Why were the Philippine Islands an important battleground?
III. American History and Religion
1. Read the First Amendment of the American Bill of Rights. What does it declare about religion in America? (See linkwww.archives.gov)
2. The Founding Fathers ensured that religious freedom is a guaranteed right for all Americans. What motivated them to do this?
3. In the book’s Preface Albom writes: “Everyone has an idea of heaven, as do most religions, and they should all be respected.” Discuss the author’s cautionary words with the class.
4. Tolerance for other Americans’ religious beliefs is necessary to American society at large. Discuss whether this is true historically.
5. List ways that religious tolerance can be practiced in your school and community.
6. List ways that tolerance for others’ differences (physical, emotional, ethnicity) can be incorporated in your students’ lives.
IV. Religion and Spirituality
1. Imagine that Albom’s depiction of heaven is correct. Ask students to list the five people they think they would meet in heaven, and the lessons their five people would teach them.
2. Pose this question to the class: If it is true that one’s actions and choices do affect others, how might a person live more peaceably with his neighbors?
3. What are the 3 major religions in the USA today? Which is the fastest growing?
4. List other practiced religions in the USA.
5. Divide the room into groups and assign each group a religion. Ask each group to research what their assigned religion teaches its followers about heaven and/or afterlife. Report findings to class.
V. Art History
1. When Eddie realizes that he is responsible for the Blue Man’s death, he believes he is in heaven for punishment. For centuries artists depicted the pleasures of heaven and the horrors of hell. Divide the class into groups. Ask each group to research famous paintings of heaven and hell (i.e. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Hieronymus Bosch’s work, etc.). Share and discuss the paintings with the other groups.
2. Discuss how an artist (painter or writer) can influence a non-reading public.
3. Do modern artists influence people’s beliefs today?
VI. Vocabulary
- Pier
- Arthritis
- Nimble
- Cacophony
- Pulley
- Husking
- Belittle
- Turrets
- Promenade
- Meld
FAQs
What is the main message of the 5 people you meet in heaven? ›
Redemption and Forgiveness
Throughout the novel, Eddie's encounters with the five people he meets in heaven teach him about the surprising ways in which life and death offer opportunities for redemption.
In heaven, Ruby tells Eddie the true story of how his father died saving Mickey, and teaches him the lesson of forgiveness.
What grade level is The Five People You Meet in Heaven? ›ASIN | 1401308589 |
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ISBN-13 | 978-1401308582 |
Reading age | 13 years and up |
Lexile measure | 780L |
Grade level | 8 and up |
The first lesson comes from a man with blue skin. Eddie had met the man only once, but an action Eddie had made changed the man's life. The lesson gleaned from the Blue Man is that all lives are interconnected on some level.
What is the first lesson in the 5 people you meet in heaven? ›Eddie asks why the Blue Man is his first person, and he informs Eddie that, when Eddie was very young, he caused the car accident that killed him. From this, Eddie learns his first lesson: there are no random events in life and all individuals and experiences are connected in some way.
What does Ruby Pier symbolize? ›Ruby Pier is the amusement park on the ocean where Eddie works in maintenance for most of his life. A place of both great celebration and great pain for Eddie and others, the park represents the variety of experience in Eddie's life.
Why is sacrifice important in The Five People You Meet in Heaven? ›The Necessity of Sacrifice
The Captain sacrificed Eddie's knee in order to save Eddie's life; furthermore, the Captain sacrificed his life when he stepped on the land mine while opening the gate so that the other men of his unit could drive through to safety.
Marguerite teaches Eddie his fourth lesson which is the power of love. She tells Eddie that although people may eventually pass away, their love will endure even after their death. Although her life ended before Eddies, her love for him endured and will continue to forever.
What lesson did Eddie's wife teach him? ›Marguerite was the only happiness in Eddie's life. She is the fourth person he meets in heaven and she teaches him the lesson that love is not lost with death.
What lesson did Blue Man teach Eddie? ›He died from a heart attack, caused by the shock from a young Eddie running into the street after a lost ball on his birthday. The Blue Man teaches Eddie that all lives are connected, even strangers.
What is the third lesson of the five people you meet in heaven? ›
Eddie's third lesson is to let go of anger and forgive his father. He finds himself back in the diner where he saw his father. He tells him that he forgives him by saying "it's fixed" (144).
How old was Marguerite when she died The Five People You Meet in Heaven? ›Marguerite is the central source of Eddie's happiness, and his life plunges when she dies of brain cancer at the age of 47. In heaven, she takes Eddie to a heaven full of weddings, where she teaches him that true love never dies.
Who is the fifth person in heaven? ›Eddie's fifth person in heaven, a little Filipino girl who Eddie unknowingly kills while he and his unit are escaping captivity during the war. Tala is affectionate, trusting, and wise. Following her mother's instructions, Tala hides from Eddie and his men in one of the abandoned village huts.
What is the Blue man's heaven in the 5 people you meet in heaven? ›Some days, he was even able to walk the beach without being stared at. The Blue Man explains to Eddie that Ruby Pier amusement park is not Eddie's heaven. It's Joseph's heaven.
What does Eddie learn about heaven from the Blue Man? ›The Blue Man tells Eddie that in life, there are no random encounters and that we are all connected in some way. The Blue Man had completed one of his steps in heaven and has to leave.
Who are the five people Eddie meets what lesson did each teach Eddie? ›- first lesson - THE BLUE MAN. all people are connected; we all influence each other; our actions affect others.
- second lesson - THE CAPTAIN. ...
- third lesson - RUBY. ...
- fourth lesson - MARGUERITE. ...
- fifth lesson - TALA.
Then everything goes black. With that, the third person Eddie meets in Heaven has taught him about forgiveness. That he must forgive his father for himself. All at once, Ruby is gone and Eddie is back in front of the diner at the top of the mountain.