LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON REVEALED THROUGH
MORRIE SCHWARTZ’S PERSPECTIVE TOWARD DEATH
AS REFLECTED IN
MITCH ALBOM’S
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE:
AN OLD MAN, A YOUNG MAN, & LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
DAVID R. WIDIANTO
Student Number: 074214006
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
i
LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON REVEALED THROUGH
MORRIE SCHWARTZ’S PERSPECTIVE TOWARD DEATH
AS REFLECTED IN
MITCH ALBOM’S
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE:
AN OLD MAN, A YOUNG MAN, & LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
DAVID R. WIDIANTO
Student Number: 074214006
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA 2011
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PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
iv
“You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the
LORD forever.”
(Psalm 23:5-6/NIV)
“Tu dresses devant moi une table,
En face de mes adversaires;
Tu oins d’huile ma tete,
Et ma coupe deborde.
Oui, le Bonheur et la grace m’accompagneront
Tous les jours de ma vie,
Et j’habiterai dans la maison de L’Eternel
Jusqu’a la fin de mes jours.”
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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : David R. Widianto.
NIM : 074214006.
demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul
LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON REVEALED THROUGH MORRIE SCHWARTZ’S PERSPECTIVE TOWARD DEATH AS REFLECTED IN MITCH ALBOM’S TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE: AN OLD MAN, A YOUNG MAN, AND LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan ini saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk lain, mengelola dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun royalitas kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Yogyakarta, 29 Juli 2011
Yang menyatakan,
David R. Widianto.
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For
Lord Jesus Christ
For
My Beloved Parents
for Their Hard Work for Me
so that I Can Get
a Higher Education
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, my gratitude goes to my God, Father, and Savior, Lord Jesus Christ for everything He does and gives to me so that I am able to accomplish my undergraduate thesis right on time and say, “Surely the angel of the Lord is around me, My God will not forsake me,” and “I am my Father’s child, no enemy can touch me.”
My enormous appreciation goes to my advisor, Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum. for all the time, energy, attention, understanding, guidance, advise, and support given throughout the writing process. I thank my co-advisor, Dr. F. X. Siswadi, M.A. for the suggestions on how this thesis should be. I thank my examiner, Maria Ananta Tri Suryandari, S.S., M.Ed. for the suggestion on how to make this thesis perfect. I also thank my academic advisor, Elisa Dwi Wardhani, S.S., M. Hum. for the advice given during the academic process. Thank you to all of the lecturers of The English Letters Department, may what you have taught affects eternity.
My gratitude goes to my parents, and my brothers, for the love, support, prayers, and being there for me. I thank my aunt, Tan Ay Hwa for the support and loan. I thank also the family in Solo for the support and love they have shown me.
Thank you to Herman, Gogor, Mustika, Sondang, and Grace for all the help and support given to me. Thank you to all of the English Letters students of 2007. I thank to Alwi for the sharing and all the information given to me. Thank you to Carlita and Alisa for a copy of their undergraduate thesis. Special thanks go
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to my best-friend Andreas, his sister Marta, and his parents for their prayers and for lending me their computer until I finish the process of writing this thesis.
Thank you to Hendi Sensei and the family of UKM Aikido Dojo Universitas Sanata Dharma, the big family of Aikido DIY, and BPD Perguruan Indonesia Aikikai DIY for being a family to me during these last four years. It is an honor to know you, to learn from you, and to join with you.
I thank Pastor Frans Z. Assa, and Mrs. Els Assa; my mentor, Pastor Andrew; Pastor Sarjani; Pastor Lukasno; and their families for remember me in their prayers that support me all the time, and for the seeds of faith they have planted within me that strengthening me in time of trouble, that enable me to pass through the rain and stand up once again.
Thank you to all the people that support me during the process of writing and completing this undergraduate thesis. I may not be able to mention your name one by one, but God knows everything, and He counts every single good deed you’ve shown and given to me, even the smallest one. Thank you very much, may God Himself rewards them for all the attention, kindness, goodness, patience, blessing, help, support, and love they all have done and shown to me during the process of writing this undergraduate thesis. Thank you very much for all the time, thoughts, energy, property, and money spent for me. God bless you all. May the grace and peace of our God, Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ……… . i
APPROVAL PAGE ………... ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE ……… . iii
MOTTO PAGE ……….. iv
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ………… . v
DEDICATION PAGE ……….... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……….. . vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ………. . ix
ABSTRACT ………... . x
ABSTRAK ………. . xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ……… . 1
A. Background of the Study ………. . 1
B. Problem Formulation ………. 4
C. Objectives of the Study ……… . 5
D. Definition of Terms ……….. . 5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ………... . 8
A. Review of Related Study ………..………... . 8
B. Review of Related Theories ………. . 10
C. Theoretical Framework ……… . 19
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ……… . 21
A. Object of the Study ……… 21
B. Approach of the Study ……….. 22
C. Method of the Study ……….. 24
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ………. . 25
A. The Characteristics of Morrie Schwartz and His Experiences... 25
1. The Characteristics of Morrie Schwartz ………... . 25
2. Morrie Schwartz’s Experiences with Death ……… . 35
B. The Life’s Greatest Lesson Revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s Perspective toward Death ………. . 41
1. The Life’s Greatest Lesson Revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s Characteristics ……….... 41
2. The Life’s Greatest Lesson Revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s Experiences ………... . 46
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ……… . 51
BIBLIOGRAPHY ………. . 53
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ABSTRACT
DAVID R. WIDIANTO. Life’s Greatest Lesson Revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s Perspective toward Death as Reflected in Mitch Albom’s
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson.
Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2011.
Death is something which is closely related to life. Every living thing will die, including human being. Birth is the beginning and death is the end of human life. Everyone will die. This undergraduate thesis deals with one of Mitch Albom’s novels entitled Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. The novel is about an old dying professor who attempts to teach people how to die.
The aim of this study is to reveal the greatest lesson of life through Morrie Schwartz’s death’s perspective. This undergraduate thesis has two questions in the problem formulation. The first is about how Morrie Schwartz described within the novel. The second is about how his teachings revealed through his characterization and his experiences.
The method of this study is library research. The primary source is the novel Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. The secondary sources are references books, sites from the internet, and other resources which supported the discussion of this undergraduate thesis. There are two theories applied the theory of character and characterization, and the theory of death and dying. The approach of this study is moral-philosophical approach.
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ABSTRAK
DAVID R. WIDIANTO. Life’s Greatest Lesson Revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s Perspective toward Death as Reflected in Mitch Albom’s
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson.
Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011.
Kematian merupakan suatu hal yang sangat berkaitan erat dengan kehidupan. Semua makhluk hidup akan mati, termasuk manusia. Kelahiran merupakan awal dan kematian adalah akhir dari hidup manusia. Setiap orang akan mati. Skripsi ini mengenai salah satu novel Mitch Albom yang berjudul Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. Novel ini mengisahkan tentang usaha seorang dosen tua yang sekarat untuk mengajar orang-orang tentang bagaimana untuk mati.
Tujuan dari penulisan skripsi ini adalah untuk mengungkapkan pelajaran hidup terbesar dari sudut pandang Morrie mengenai kematian. Dalam skripsi ini terdapat dua perumusan masalah. Yang pertama adalah tentang bagaimana tokoh Morrie Schwartz digambarkan dalam novel tersebut. Yang kedua adalah tentang bagaimana pelajaran hidup terbesar itu diungkapkan lewat penokohan dan pengalaman-pengalaman Morrie.
Metode yang digunakan dalam skripsi ini adalah penelitian pustaka. Sumber utamanya adalah novel itu sendiri, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. Sumber pendukungnya adalah buku-buku referensi, situs-situs dari internet, dan sumber-sumber lainnya yang mendukung pembahasan ini. Ada dua teori yang diterapkan, yaitu teori tentang tokoh dan penokohan, dan teori tentang kematian dan sekarat. Pendekatan yang digunakan untuk menganalisa pokok permasalahan adalah moral-filosofis.
Analisa skripsi ini dibagi menjadi dua sub-bab berdasarkan kedua pertanyaan dalam perumusan masalah. Masing-masing sub-bab dibagi lagi menjadi dua bagian yang lebih kecil. Bagian pertama mengenai penokohan Morrie, dan bagian kedua mengenai pengalaman-pengalaman Morrie. Analisa ini menemukan bahwa ajaran Morrie mengenai kehidupan dilihat dari sudut pandang kematian secara filosofis adalah ajaran-ajaran moral tentang bagaimana menjadi manusia dan bagaimana hidup sebagai manusia untuk menemukan nilai-nilai dan makna hidup.
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Everything has its own cycle, a beginning and an end. Nothing will last forever in this world, including life. For life itself has a beginning (birth) and an end (death). It is something natural. Every living creature will experience that same fact of life. Themba Mohale in his article titled “Death Perception” wrote, “Things have a beginning and an end. Birth is a beginning and death is the end of human’s life” (June 21, 2010).
This idea that death is the end of human’s life, and that it is part of life also supported by Tem Horwitz. In his essay within the book Death and Philosophy which is titled “My Death” he wrote, “When I died it was the end . . . Life would go on without me. A few people would grieve. Then they too would be gone” (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 11-12). When someone dies it is the end of the person’s life, but life will still go on. Some people would grieve on someone’s death. Especially for someone they know such as friend, family member, relative, etc. However, everyone is going to die.
The way people think about death is that death is seen as something normal that happens to an elderly person. People think that the elderly have lived out their life and it is normal for them to die because of old age. As what Mohale mentioned in his article, “Death was considered to be for the elderly. The death of
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an elderly person was seen as just and many people would say that they lived out their lives” (“Death Perception”, June 21, 2010).
No one knows when one will die, where one will die, and how one will die. Everyone can die at any time, any place, and it can be caused by many factors. Death can be caused by many factors such as illness, accident, and many others.
Death which is caused by illness does not just happen instantly, and one does not die within a second or less. Sometimes it takes some time for the dying process phase, or what Robert Kastenbaum defined as the ‘end-phase of life’ in his article “Dying, Process of” where he explained it as, “the period in which major body systems have failed and the individual has become dependent on others for total care” (Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, 2011). As a period it means that it has a certain length of time for the major body system to completely fail to function as it is. This phase of dying can be years, months, weeks, or days. And during this period, the person will become more and more dependent to others to take care of him/her-self.
In this study, the writer attempts to analyze a character, who is dying because of ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). One who suffers from ALS will die slowly, within years. The disease attacks one’s neurological system that causes the general loss of the function of one’s body parts until they are completely unable to move. When the disease attacks all the respiratory organs, the person will die. Below is the general fact about the disease,
ALS causes weakness with a wide range of disabilities . . . Eventually, all muscles under voluntarily control are affected, and patients lose
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their strength and the ability to move their arms, legs, and body. When muscles in the diaphragm and chest wall fail, patients lose the ability to breathe without ventilator support. Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure, usually within 3 to 5 years from the onset of symptoms. However, about 10 percent of ALS patient survive for 10 or more years (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Fact Sheet,” February 2010).
The character that becomes the object of this study is Morris Schwartz, who is well known within the work as Morrie. He was a professor of Social Psychology in Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He received the news that he had ALS in August 1994 from a neurologist. By the end of 1994, his doctors guessed that his life was only two years left, but he knew that his life time was less than two years. He died on November 4, 1995 at the age of 78.
The work of literature the writer uses, on the one hand, tells about a dying old man who was suffering ALS, on the other hand, it tells about a wise professor who understands life and death very well. Stephanie Bowen on her review of this book wrote,
You could say there are two stories within TWM (Tuesdays with Morrie). One is the story of a man and a disease. The other is the story of a professor of social psychology who has come to understand that life’s complexities can be broken down into simple truths. . . . Mitch and Morrie subsequently spent the next sixteen Tuesdays together exploring many of life’s fundamental issues – family, marriage, aging and culture to name a few. . . . When all is said and done, we will be remembered not by our bank accounts or stock portfolios, but by the time we spent listening to a friend or helping a family member. . . . Perhaps his story is more powerful because you’re not only taking in his wisdom, but you are experiencing his death (“Books Reviews Tuesdays with Morrie,”May 07, 1998).
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flipping television channel, later on pay him a visit. The reunion of the professor and his student results a book. A book which contains the professor’s teaching about life from death perspective – or what is written within the book as “. . . living with death’s shadow. . .” (Albom, 1997: 18) – made the book more challenging to be analyzed.
The way Morrie talked and gave his ideas about death made the writer become curious with what Morrie had in his mind about death. Therefore, in this study, the writer tries to reveal what is the life’s greatest lesson revealed through his perspective toward death through his characteristics and experiences which may have influence him in shaping his perspectives about death.
B. Problem Formulation
To understand the life’s greatest lesson revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s perspective toward death, two problems have been formulated as follows:
1. How is Morrie Schwartz described?
2. How is the greatest lesson on life revealed through the characteristics and his experiences?
Those two questions are the problems that have been formulated for this study. Both are needed for the analysis of this study, in order to reveal the greatest lesson on life through Morrie Schwartz’s perspective toward death.
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C. Objectives of the Study
In order to understand life’s greatest lesson revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s perspective toward death, the objectives of this study had been decided based on the problem formulation above. There are two steps which are needed to be taken in order to answer the two questions. The first step is to identify how is Morrie Schwartz described by identifying his characteristics and his experiences which may influence his perspective about death; in order to understand deeper his views, thoughts, and attitudes toward death. And the second step is to find out how the greatest lesson on life is revealed through the characteristics of Morrie Schwartz and his experiences. Those are the two objectives in this study.
D. Definition of Terms
There are some terms which need to be defined in analyzing the work. These terms will hopefully help the readers to have a better understanding of this study. They are:
1. Death
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Horwitz in his essay titled “My Death: Reflections on My Journey into Non-being” wrote, “When I died it was the end . . . Life would go on without me” (1998: 11-12). From the quotations of the two sources above, it is clear that both sources are giving the idea that death is the end of a person’s life.
2. Dying
The word dying in this study is defined as the ill process that someone suffers before the person die. To define this definition, the writer uses the theory of dying from Robert Kastenbaum’s essay titled “Dying, Process of”. In his essay, Kastenbaum called dying as “the end-phase of life”, and he defines it as, “the period in which major body systems have failed and the individual has become dependent on others for total care” (Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, 2011). When one’s major body system has failed to function as it should, the person will fall ill, but the person has not dead, yet. The person will be said to suffer a fatal or terminal illness and that is going to die in a certain period of time. In this condition, the person needs others to take care of the self. From the quotation, it is clear that dying is the ill process that someone suffers before the person die.
3. Life’s greatest lesson revealed through the perspective of death
The word lesson means “something that provides experience or information that you can learn from and use” (LDCE, 2004: 924). From this definition, simply the term life’s greatest lesson revealed from the perspective of death means the greatest experience and or information on life which is seen from
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
In this chapter, the writer presents the review of related studies, the review of related theories, and the theoretical framework of this study. The review of related studies and the review of related theories are to support the analysis in this study. In the review of related theories, the writer presents the theory of character and characterization, and theory of death the writer uses for this study. In the theoretical framework the writer presents the explanation of the contribution of the theories and the reviews for this study.
A. Review of Related Study
Tuesdays with Morrie is an inspirational recount of Morris Schwartz’s life. There are two stories in the work, a story of a dying old man and a story of a wise sociology professor. The reunion of a professor and his student creates a book. For sixteen Tuesdays, the professor and his student were exploring life’s fundamental issues. The dying professor was giving his wonderful insights about life. Just like Maya Angelou’s Won’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Morrie’s wisdom is giving a clarity and understanding to life’s biggest questions. Morrie’s story is inspiring and powerful because it takes the reader not only into his wisdom but also his death. The changes in Mitch’s life proved that Morrie’s final
class is a success (Stephanie Bowen, “Books Reviews Tuesdays with Morrie,” May 07, 1998).
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Alisa Widya Mutiara, a former student of English Letters Department in Sanata Dharma University, wrote also an undergraduate thesis under the same work. Her undergraduate thesis is entitled Moral Lesson on Death and Love Depicted in Morrie Schwartz in Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie. The focus of her study is on the moral lessons on death and love which described through the character of Morrie Schwartz. In her analysis, she uses the theory of loving and dying from Buddhism perspective, which was taken from Visuddhacara’s book Loving and Dying. Below is a part of her analysis,
On the other hand, Morrie sees death as a part of nature so everyone must accept it. If there is life, there must be death. Morrie says, “It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made” (p. 172). He explains that everything that gets born dies. His view about death is inspired by the Buddhist teaching that death is the part of the circle of life that everyone will experience death so people must accept it (Visuddhacara, 1993: 92 via Mutiara, 2005: 42-43).
For Morrie, death is a natural phenomenon in life. It is not like a disease which is contagious as what people think but it is a part of life. Although her analysis is based on Buddhism, what Morrie had in his mind about death reveals his teaching on life which is seen from the perspective of death.
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toward death. The greatest lesson on life revealed through Morie’s perspective toward death is the focus and what the writer will analyze in this study.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theory of Character and Characterization
According to M.H. Abrams in his book A Glossary of Literary Terms, characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or a narrative work. Characters
are interpreted by readers from the moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities which are expressed in what the characters say (the dialogue) and do (the action). While on characterization, or what he called as characterizing, Abrams described it as the description of the characters itself. There are two ways in describing characters. First, is by showing or “the dramatic method”, where the author leaves to the reader to interpret the motives and dispositions from what the characters say and do. Second, is by telling, where the author is authoritatively describe and evaluate the motives and dispositions of the characters (1985: 23-24).
Judith Ferster in Arguing Through Literature: A Thematic Anthology and Guide to Academic Writing defined characters in literature by what they think and say, what other characters and the narrator say about them, what they do, and what they look like. That is the information needed to interpret, judge, or inhabit characters. Our relationships to them are like our real relationship with real people in life (2005: 80).
According to Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson in Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense: Tenth Edition, literary fiction does not need to show
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the attractive character but a character which is likeable or loved by readers. Human nature is not entirely bad or perfectly good, so in literary fiction characters are composed of good and evil desire, the three dimensions of human beings as real people. Authors present their characters in direct and indirect presentation. In
direct presentation, the author directly describes with exposition or analysis what the characters are like, or having another character in the story to describe them. In indirect presentation, the author describes the characters through their actions; the readers determine what they are like from what they say or do. Almost all characters in good fiction are dramatized, or presented speaking and behaving as in a stage play (2009: 162-163).
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A character within a story is often experience an epiphany, a moment of spiritual insight into life or the character’s circumstances (Arp and Johnson, 2009: 164-165).
Three conditions which are expected by literary readers in a character’s change: First, it is consistent with the characterization of the character dramatized in the story. Second, it is sufficiently motivated by the character’s circumstances. Third, sufficient time for the change to take place and it is believable. It is the quality of characterization which decided whether a literary story stands or falls. From the greatest novels and short stories that we read, we tend to remember the characters than the plot. (Arp and Johnson, 2009: 165).
M.J. Murphy in his book Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Students describes some of author’s ways to describe the characters and their personalities in their book, in order to make them understandable and alive for the readers. Those ways are, a) Personal description
The author describes a person’s appearance and clothes (physical appearance) by giving the details of what a person looks like, and or by giving information about the conflict faced by the character.
b) Character as seen by another
The author describes a person through what others see and think about the person. In this way, the author gives the reader a reflected image of a person. In another words, the reader is given the impressions of the character described.
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c) Speech
The author gives an insight through what the person says. Whenever the person speaks, having conversation with others, or gives opinion. This is a way an author gives some clue to the reader about a character.
d) Past life
The author letting the reader catches something about a person’s past life in order to gives the reader a clue to events which has influence in shaping the person’s character. The author does this by giving his direct comment about the person, through the person’s self thoughts, the person’s conversation with others, or by the medium of another person.
e) Conversation of others
The author gives the reader clues about a person from the conversation of others and what they say about the person. The things that they say are the clues about the person spoken about.
f) Reactions
The author gives a clue to the reader about a person by letting the reader to know the person’s reaction to various situations and events.
g) Direct comment
The author gives description or direct comment to a person’s character. h) Thoughts
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i) Mannerism
The author describes a person’s mannerism, habits, or behaviors which may tell something about the character to the reader.
Those are some ways which is used by an author to make his characters and personalities of the people in his work understandable to the readers. The author blends skillfully these methods within the work, so that the reader carried along the narrative. This makes the reader unaware of the author’s skills of revealing characters and personalities one by one, so that the reader will tend to think of the characters as real people (1972: 161-173).
From the nine ways on how an author describes his characters according to Murphy, the writer will only apply five of them for the analysis of this study, because the author of the work under study only applied those five ways to describes the character of Morrie, they are: character as seen by another, speech, past life, direct comment, and thoughts.
2. Theory of Death and Dying
To support this study and the analysis of this study, the writer uses the theory of death from Themba Mohale’s article titled “Death Perception”, and Jeff Malpas and Robert C. Solomon’s book titled Death and Philosophy. The writer also uses the theory of dying from Robert Kastenbaum’s essay in Encyclopedia of Death and Dying titled “Dying, Process of”.
a. Theory of Death
The first death theory the writer uses is an article titled “Death Perception”. This article is discussing about the beginning and the end of life,
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people’s views on birth and death, the Christian’s ancient history of death, what happen to man when he dies, young people’s lack of experience with death, people’s fear about death, the denial of death, and how people consider death. From this article, the writer takes the general philosophy on death, such as: the simple and precise definition of death “. . . death is the end of a human’s life.”; death’s position in life as a part of it; people’s fear of death which results in their attempt “. . . to avoid dangerous things. . .” which lead to physical “. . . harm and can result in death.”; and how people consider it as something normal to be happen for the elderly (Themba Mohale, June 21, 2010).
The second death theory the writer uses is a book titled Death and Philosophy. The book is about philosophy’s essential concern with death. Philosophical perspective on death is informed by literary and aesthetic considerations, and by personal experience. The importance of appropriate understanding of death is for proper understanding of human life and for proper living in life. The significance of death is found in the relation between the fact of death and the possibilities for vital and fulfilled human life. In which, the philosophical concept of death according to this book is the moral implications/teaching on how to live a human life and how to be human. As it is written within the book as, “Certainly death or the experiences and feelings that cluster round the concept of death . . . seem to be at the heart of what it is to live a human life and of what it means to be human” (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 1).
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with death, and how he valued life from death perspective. It is interesting as he wrote,
What makes my life interesting and confers some purpose to it is that my actions, any of which may be my last, are manifestations of my will in the face of my death. . . . All of my struggles are indeed struggles for life . . . All of my battles are indeed battles for life. Death adds a potency and concentration to life. It is a most reliable counselor (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 15).
For Horwitz, death makes his life interesting and his actions have purposes. Everything he does, he does it for life. For him, “death adds a potency and concentration to life,” and the thought of death functions as a counselor.
Chapter five of the book presents Kathleen Higgins’s essay titled “Death and the Skeleton”. In this essay, Higgins presents her idea on seeing life as a story, that no matter how good it is it will end. Death is meaningful because it contributes values to our life. Where she wrote, “We can see death as meaningful . . . because it contributes to our valuing life” (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 49). According to Higgins, life is meaningful because of death; it gives values to our life.
The seventh chapter of Death and Philosophy presents Roger T. Ames’s essay titled “Death as Transformation in Classical Daoism”. It is about the relation between life and death seen from Daoism perspective, where he wrote:
Without death . . . life would be static, transparent, predictable and tedious. Death is the indeterminate aspect that makes process, change, complexity and novelty possible. . . . death does not inhibit or subvert life, but stimulates and drives it . . . (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 60).
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For Ames, life will be monotonous without death. It is death which makes life become varied. Death stimulates and drives life.
Chapter 9 of the book presents Graham Parkes’s essay “Death and Detachment: Montaigne, Zen, Heidegger and the Rest”. In this essay, Parkes explore and compare different ways of thinking about death from Western and Asian philosophical views. At the end of his essay he concluded the two different philosophical views on death as, “Since death and life are inextricably intertwined, the best way to die is the best way to live: that is, to realize (in the dual sense of becoming aware of and making real) the radically momentary nature of our existence” (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 97). Parkes found that death and life are two things which cannot be separated. To die means to live. So the best way he found is to realize, meaning to become aware of death in life.
The last chapter of the book presents Robert C. Solomon’s essay “Death Fetishism, Morbid Solipsism”. In his essay, Solomon presents the idea of death’s role in giving sense or meaning toward life. In his essay he wrote:
. . . talking, thinking, and writing about death . . . as an abstraction, and philosophical ideas, I believe, can actually have some impact on one’s feelings and behavior, on one’s actual life. . . . An essay on death . . . is to say something . . . about what it is to be human. . . . How one dies means everything. . . . death remained something of a highlight of a person’s life . . . death fetishism . . . insists . . . something essential . . . death fetishism is converting death from the inevitable end of life into the meaning of life, the ultimate test of life, even the point of life. . . . A good death . . . comes at the end of a good life (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 154-156, 160-163, 170).
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Death fetishism sees death as something positive. What a person does while living determine the person’s death.
Based on what is presented above, it is clear that the moral teaching on how to live a human life and how to be human is the philosophical perspective toward death as the greatest lesson in life according to this book.
b. Theory of Dying
The theory of dying the writer uses is Robert Kastenbaum’s essay entitled “Dying, Process of”. According to this theory, death is the outcome of the process of dying. Although medical establishment slowly uses the term “dying”,
terminal illness is the preferred term in the twenty-first century. Another term for dying is end-of-life (EOL). And currently, the most useful addition is end-phase of life, the period in which major body systems have failed and the individual has become dependent on others for total care. It is more specific than “dying”, or “terminally ill”. Terminally ill people can continue their daily activity and careers, and can take care of themselves; while people in the end-phase cannot, they are likely to receive special care in the hospital or at home. “When does dying begin?” becomes important question for the epiphany moment to occur when a person is dying. In a strict philosophical perspective’s sense, dying begins at birth. The irrelevant connection between dying and aging is that many old people enjoying good health well in their age. The most common formulation is that dying begins when a physician recognized a fatal condition; the patient receive information of the condition; the patient realizes and accepts the facts; other people in the situation (family and friends) also realizes and accepts the facts; the
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facts that there is nothing more can be done. A dying person has time to be with family and friends to reflect on life’s values and meanings. The nature of the disease, the type and quality of care are the decisive factors in the dying process (Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, 2011).
C. Theoretical Framework
To answer the two questions on the problem formulation of this study, some theories are needed to conduct the analysis. There are two theories that the writer uses. The first is theory of character and characterization from: M. H. Abrams’s A Glossary of Literary Terms: Sixth Edition; Judith Ferster’s Arguing Through Literature: A Thematic Anthology and Guide to Academic Writing; Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson’s Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense; Tenth Edition; and M. J. Murphy’s Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Students. The second theory is the theory of death and dying. The theory of death is taken from: Themba Mohale’s “Death Perception”; Jeff Malpas and Robert C. Solomon’s
Death and Philosophy; and the theory of dying is taken from: Robert Kastenbaum’s “Dying, Process of” from Encyclopedia of Death and Dying.
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characteristics in order to get a clearer understanding of his views, thoughts, and attitudes toward death.
The second theory the writer uses is the theory of death and dying, since the second problem formulation of this study is questioning about a dying old man’s teaching on life seen from the perspective death. The writer needs to understand exactly how the greatest lesson on life revealed through his perspective toward death by analyzing his characteristics and experiences, in order to answer the second question of the problem formulation in chapter one.
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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the writer presents the methodology of this study which consists of three parts: the object of the study, the approach of the study, and the method of the study. In the object of the study the writer gives the description of the work under study. In the approach of the study the writer explains the approach uses to analyze in this study. In the method of the study, the writer explains the procedure taken in analyzing the work.
A. Object of the Study
The object of the study is a non-fiction novel written by Mitch Albom, titled Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. The novel was published by Anchor Books in 1997. It consists of 192 pages which were divided into 27 chapters. This novel had some special records as: “The runaway bestseller that changed millions of lives.”, “The modern inspirational classic.”, and “More than 11 million copies in print.”
The first edition of the novel was published by Doubleday with hard cover for only 25.000 copies. In 2001, the novel was published again for 800.000 copies, published in 19 countries and 16 languages. The only reason the Author wrote the novel is to pay Morrie’s medical bills (CNN.com Chat Books, “CNN Chat Transcripts: Meet Mitch Albom,” 2001).
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The work in general is about a young man who is frustrated in facing life’s reality, he wanted to have a little meaning in his life but he did not know how. He remember of what his former professor ever told to him about “being human” and “relating to others”, and one night he saw his former professor on a television talk show program already dying of ALS, so he decided to see him. The reunion of a professor and his student was changed into a project what Morrie and Mitch called as their ‘last thesis together’. The dying old man, was teaching and showing how to live a meaningful life. For sixteenth Tuesdays both of them discussed together about life’s issues, until the time has come for the dying old man to see his Creator.
B. Approach of the Study
The approach that the writer uses in this study is Moral-Philosophical Approach. It was taken from the book A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: Sixth Edition, written by Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. According to this approach, the larger function of literature is to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues. In another word, is to interpret a literary work from the context of a philosophical thought of a period or group. – That is according to Samuel Johnson, a commentator of the age of neoclassicism in English literature (1660-1800), (2011: 60).
Matthew Arnold (a Victorian critic) stated that, a great literary work must have “high seriousness” (Guerin, 2011: 61). The important thing is the moral or
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philosophical teaching. He also emphasizes that: “In the larger sense, all great literature teaches. The critic who employs the moral-philosophical approach insists on ascertaining and stating what is taught” (Guerin, 2011: 61).
This approach examines the moral and philosophical issues in a text. The focus is on what it says, what is being taught in the text. Although sometimes the approach is considered as being “traditional” in the sense of “old”, but it remains fundamental for literary study. This approach also has its limitations to be only draws the “moral of the story” as a form of life-lesson, as what Henry James argued in his book The Art of Fiction (Guerin, 2011, 70-71).
What Henry James argued as the weakness of the approach, for the writer it is the strength of the approach. The writer uses this approach for this study because the work contains a lot of moral teaching. So, moral-philosophical approach is the perfect approach for this study. As what is written within the book as follows:
It seems reasonable, then, to employ … moral-philosophical analyses among other methods (such as textual study and recognition of genre) in getting at the total meaning of a literary work when the work seems to call for them (Guerin, 2011: 61).
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C. Method of the Study
The procedure taken in this study is library research. The primary source is the work it-self, a non-fiction novel, titled: Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson, written by Mitch Albom.
Some of the secondary sources are: M. H. Abrams’s Glossary of Literary Terms; Judith Ferster’s Arguing Through Literature: A Thematic Anthology and Guide to Academic Writing; Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson’s Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense: Tenth Edition; M. J. Murphy’s
Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel
for Overseas Students; Jeff Malpas and Robert C Solomon’s Death and Philosophy; and Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham’s A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: Sixth Edition.
There were some steps that the writer took for the analysis. The first step was, identifying Morrie’s characteristics and his experiences which were related to death by using the theory of character and characterization, in order to get a clear understanding of Morrie’s views, thoughts, and attitudes toward death. The second step was, analyzing what Morrie said about life from death’s perspective, and how his experiences with death influence his perspective on death by using the theory of death and dying, and the moral-philosophical approach in order to reveal his life’s greatest lesson through his characteristics and experiences.
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CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
In this chapter, the writer presents the analysis of this study in order to answer the questions stated in the problem formulation in chapter one. This chapter is divided into two subchapters. The first subchapter is identifying Morrie Schwartz’s characteristics and his experiences related to death. His characteristics and experiences (with death) are identified by applying the theory of character and characterization presented in chapter two. The second subchapter is analyzing how is the life’s greatest lesson revealed through Morrie’s perspective toward death seen from his characteristics and experiences. To do this, the writer uses the theory of death and dying, and moral-philosophical approach.
A. The Characteristics of Morrie Schwartz and His Experiences
1. The Characteristics of Morrie Schwartz
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the English novel for Overseas Students. Meanwhile, to get a clearer definition about the characteristics of Morrie Schwartz, the writer using The New International Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language:
Deluxe Encyclopedic Edition, and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
(LDCE): New Edition to define each of his characteristics. Below the writer presents some of his characteristics as follows:
a. Acceptant
The word acceptant in this characteristic is an adjective which means “ready or willing to accept; receptive” (Read and Team, 1996: 9).
Morrie is an acceptant person. He accepts his condition of being dying without being jealous of others who are healthy. And he knows exactly how to accept it, which makes Mitch becomes more amaze of him. As what is described by the author when he visits him for the first time as follows,
I was astonished by his complete lack of self-pity. Morrie, who could no longer dance, swim, bathe, or walk; Morrie, who could no longer answer his own door, dry himself after a shower, or even roll over in bed. How could he be so accepting (Albom, 1997: 35-36)?
The quotation describes Morrie as an acceptant person. It is the narrator’s direct comment. Mitch is wonder by his acceptance of his condition; his lack of self-pity, although he begins to become dependent on others. Morrie knows there’s nothing he can do to change his condition, unless by becomes ready or willingly accept it.
Later on, on the Fourth Tuesday, Morrie tells Mitch, “If you accept that you can die at any time – then you might not be as ambitious as you are” (Albom,
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1997: 83). The quotation is one of the lessons he taught about how to die. In this way, the author gives a clue about the character from what the person say. From this quotation also it is clear that Morrie accepts the fact that he can die at any time. The fact where there is nothing he can do to change his condition, the only way he can do is accepting it.
Another evidence that he is an acceptant person is that when he experiences an epiphany weeks after he receives the news that he suffers ALS. He begins to accept his death, as it is written in the work as follows,
But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor’s office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? He had asked himself.
He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.
Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip (Albom, 1997: 10).
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the way Morrie speaks about his own death as, “Study me in my slow and patience demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.” Both ways are showing Morrie’s acceptance toward death and his final decission to teach people how to die. So, the quotation above serves as the evidence that Morrie is an acceptant person.
b. Inspiring
The word inspiring is categorized as an adjective, and it means, “giving people a feeling of excitement and a desire to do something great” (LDCE, 2004: 843).
Morrie is also described as an inspiring person. He does not give up to his disease, but he wants to inspire others with his death, he wants to make his death become his “final project”, and he intends to prove that the word “dying” is not the same with “useless” as what Albom wrote,
He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.
Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.
Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip (Albom, 1997: 10).
According to Albom, in his speech at the Augie’s Quest bash about Morrie, he mentioned that after Morrie knew that he was dying and was going to die he made a decision to teach people what is like to die (mitchalbom.com, “Tuesdays with Morrie Video,” 2008-2009). In the quotation above, the author gives a clue of the person’s characteristic from his direct comment and the character’s thought (written in italics). The clue within the quotation is that Morie is an inspiring
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person. Morrie is inviting people to studying him. He wants to make his death as an inspiration for others. As what the author wrote about his thoughts as, “Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me”, and “Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip.” Both showing that Morrie wants to inspire others by teaching them what is like to die.
Although he is already using wheelchair, starts to have difficulty when eating, and his legs are dead, but Morrie does not give up. He continues to inspire others and write many aphorisms, as what is explained within the work as follows, “. . . Morrie had become a lightning rod of ideas. He jotted down his thoughts on yellow pads, envelopes, folders, scrap paper. He wrote bite-sized philosophies about living with death’s shadow: “Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do”; “Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it”; “Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others”; “Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved” (Albom, 1997: 18).
The quotation above is another evidence that Morrie is an inspiring person. It is the author’s direct comment. It gives the clue that he is an inspiring person. It is also mentioned that Morrie does write short philosophies (aphorisms) about living with death’s shadow, which is one of the many ways he does to inspire others.
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ABC’s program called the Nightline (Albom, 1997: 18-19). This is also the evidence that Morrie is an inspiring person. In short, Morrie’s writing inspires his fellow professor, Maurie Stein, who sent them to a reporter; the writing inspires the reporter, who then wrote a story about him. The story that the reporter wrote inspires a television show producer and the host of the show, Ted Koppel, whom later broadcasted his interviews with him on what is like to be dying until three times. His appearance on Nightline inspires ABC television’s audiences (Albom, 1997: 19-23, 69-72, 160-163).
Once Morrie received a letter from a woman named Jane. She thanked him for his inspiration on the television show. She mentioned him as a prophet.
Another letter was read from a woman named Jane, who was thanking him for his inspiration on the “Nightline” program. She referred to him as a prophet (Albom, 1997: 86).
That is also one of the author’s ways to gives a clue on a person characteristic by describing Morrie from the eyes and opinions of other, or what Murphy called in his book Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Students as “character as seen by another” (1972: 162-164). The quotation above also serves as the evidence that Morrie is an inspiring person. It is mentioned that a woman named Jane thanked him for his inspiration on the television show. This evidence is emphasizing more this characteristic from the way Jane addressed him as a ‘prophet’.
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c. Reflective
The word reflective is categorized as an adjective; and in this characteristic of Morrie, it means, “given to reflection or thought; meditative . . . used in or capable of consideration or reflection” (Read and Team, 1996: 1059).
Morrie is a reflective person. He likes to meditate things happen to him. For example: After he received the news that he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) from a neurologist and to knew that there is no cure for the disease and the fact that he’s going to die. He was stunned watching people’s daily activity and asked questions to himself, “Shouldn’t the world stop? Don’t they know what has happened to me?” (Albom, 1997: 8). It is the way the narrator describe what Morrie is thinking about. The quotation showing that he is a reflective person. Morrie is trying to figure out what is happening to him with the world around him. At the moment, he was not able to receive the fact yet.
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In his interview with Ted Koppel for the television show it is clearly stated by Albom how reflective Morrie is,
“Ted,” he said, “when all this started, I asked myself, ‘am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?’ I decided I’m going to live – or at least try to live – the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.”
“There are mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I’m so angry and bitter. But it doesn’t last too long. Then I get up and say, ‘I want to live . . . ‘ “ (Albom, 1997: 21).
It is the way the author gives a clue about a person characteristic from the person’s own speech. In the quotation above, Morrie is telling Koppel that he takes some time to reflecting his condition of being dying as he says, “when all this started, I asked myself,” and “There are mornings when I cry and mourn for myself.” He is thinking about what he should do while he still alive realizing that what happen to him is not easy to deal with, as he speaks, “ ‘am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?’ I decided I’m going to live – or at least try to live – the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.”, and “Then I get up and say, ‘I want to live . . .‘ ” Morrie is sharing his thoughts in his interview for the Nightline program. From the quotation, it is clear that he does reflecting things that happen to him before he finally makes a decision. So, the quotation serves as the evidence that he is a reflective person.
d. Wise
The word wise in this characteristic of Morrie Schwartz is an adjective to describe a person as, “possessed of wisdom; seeing clearly what is right and just; having sound judgment concerning one’s highest interest, and in one’s own
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conduct choosing the best end and the best means for reaching that end; in a lower sense, sagacious; also, shrewd or calculating . . . marked by wisdom; prudent; sensible . . . having great learning; erudite” (Read and Team, 1996: 1445).
Morrie is described as a wise person. One of the evidences, which gives the clue that Morrie is a wise person is that he writes more than 50 aphorisms about “living with death’s shadow”, as it is written within the work as follows,
He wrote bite-sized philosophies about living with death’s shadow: “Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do”; “Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it”; “Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others”; “Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.”
After a while, he had more than fifty of these “aphorisms” . . . (Albom, 1997: 18).
In the above quotation, Morrie’s wisdom is proved by his short philosophies (aphorisms) that he made. The quotation is the narrator’s direct comment which contains clues about this characteristic. Morrie’s aphorisms contain good advice, something a wise person would give and it is made based on his experience living with death’s shadow. So, the quotation above serves as the evidence that Morrie is a wise person.
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from it. So the quotation from page 29 of the work proves that Morrie is a wise person.
About Morrie’s wisdom, Albom admitted it, as he wrote within the work as follows,
. . . Morrie, my old professor . . . He was standing on the tracks, listening to death’s locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life (Albom, 1997: 65-66).
The quotation is the narrator’s direct comments. It gives the clue that Morrie is a wise person. In the quotation above, the phrase “… he was very clear about the important things in life” indirectly state that Morrie is a wise person. A wise person can makes good decisions because he knows what is important. Morrie is very clear about the important things in life. So, from the quotation above it is proved that Morrie is a wise person.
About death Morrie gives his wise insights as it is written within the novel, some of his wise insights about death can be found as follows,
“Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it.”
“Everyone knows they’re going to die . . . but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently” (Albom, 1997: 80-81).
It is the person’s own speech, one of the ways an author gives the clue about a person’s characteristics. The quotation above gives the idea that Morrie is a wise person. He is sharing this idea based on his experience. Morrie is dying, not just he believes that he is going to die, the fact is that he is going to die, and it is sooner not later. For Morrie, if someone believes that he/she will die, the person will live his/her life differently, for example the way he rebukes Mitch, “. . . if you
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accept that you can die at any time – then you might not be as ambitious as you are” (Albom, 1997: 83). This quotation is Morrie’s own speech. Through it the author gives the clue that he is a wise person because if one believes that one will die, one might not be so ambitious in one’s career and or achievement. The quotation above proves that Morrie is a wise person because there is a good advice in it. It advices people to do their best and to give their best in their actions as if it is the last deeds they do before they die, because no one knows when one will die.
Those are Morrie Schwartz’s characteristics related to death the writer identifies from within the work of literature under study. In short, Morrie’s characteristics are: acceptant, inspiring, reflective, and wise. To analyze the characteristics above, the writer applied four of Murphy’s elements on how an author describes his character according to what the author of the novel uses, they are: character as seen by another, speech, direct comment, and thoughts. Based on the characteristics above it is clear that Morrie is an interesting person to be known and learnt from.
2. Morrie Schwartz’s Experiences with Death
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a. His mother’s death
This (Morrie’s) first experience with death can be found within the work on page 73-77. This experience may influence his perspectives toward death. Below is what the writer identifies from this experience.
When he was eight years old, his mother died because of an illness. The hospital where she was taken sent a telegram to the family about this news. Because his father cannot read English, Morrie is the one who broke the news. In the funeral, while people shoveled his mother’s grave with soil, “He tried to recall the tender moments they had shared when she was alive” (Albom, 1997: 73). After her death, his brother, David had polio. Each morning he went to the synagogue to pray for his dead mother and sick brother. While in the afternoon he sold magazines and turned over the money to his family to buy food. He was lonely and lack of love after his mother’s death. His father, Charlie never showed him affection and warmth, not even a communication that he always wanting for. When he was nine years old, “he felt as if the weight of a mountain were on his shoulders” (Albom, 1997: 75).
The following year, he had a new stepmother, Eva. She was warm, full of energy, a loving and caring woman. “Morrie took comfort in her soothing voice, her school lessons, her strong character … and he felt, deep down, that he had a mother again” (Albom, 1997: 76). Eva taught him how to love, to care, and to learn. She knows that education is the only antidote to their poverty. To keep the memory of his mother alive, Morrie went to the synagogue every morning “… to say Kaddish – the memorial prayer for the dead …” (Albom, 1997: 77). Charlie
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told him not to talk about his mother. He wanted David, Morrie’s younger brother to think that Eva was his biological mother. It was a terrible burden for him. The only evidence of his mother he had was the telegram of her death. “He had hidden it the day it arrived” (Albom, 1997: 77).
This ‘mother’s death’ thing is a continuous pain for him. At a chapter of the work, titled The Audiovisual, Part Two, where he had his second interview lively for Nightline television show. Before the show ended, a letter was read. The letter came from Barbara, a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania. She taught a special class of 9 children whom suffering a parent’s death. He replied the letter saying that the letter touched him, that what she did to those children is very important. And suddenly, while the camera still recording, he stopped his words, he began to cry while saying, “ ‘I lost my mother when I was a child . . . and it was quite a blow to me . . . I wish I’d had a group like yours where I would have been able to talk about my sorrows. I would have joined your group because . . . because I was so lonely . . .’ “ (Albom, 1997: 71-72). Then, the host of the show, called his name, saying that Morrie’s mother’s death was seventy years ago, and asked him does the pain still go on? And Morrie answered him, “You bet” (Albom, 1997: 72) in a whispered voice.
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explains that he (Morrie) is “. . . haunted by his mother’s death-notice telegram . . .” (Albom, 1997: 187-188).
Most of the quotations within the paragraphs above are the narrator’s direct comments and one is the character’s (Morrie’s) own speech on the person’s self experience with death. They all give a clue that Morrie is bearing a burden of his mother’s death. A burden which turned into sorrows, that gives him nothing than a continuous pain, and being haunted by it.
b. His father’s death
This second experience of Morrie’s encounter with death can be found on page 138-140 of the novel. This experience may influence his perspective toward death. Below is what the writer identifies about this experience.
Charlie Schwartz, Morrie’s father was dead because of heart attack. This was happen while Morrie was raising his children out of Bronx. At that time, Charlie was still living in Bronx. One night he was accosted by two robbers. He threw his wallet, and ran to a relative’s house. He was collapsed on the porch of the house and died there. Morrie was called to the Bronx city’s morgue to identify the body. Inside the morgue he was staring at his father’s dead body and recalled the memory he had with him. According to the narrator, his father’s death also helped him prepare for his own death, as he wrote,
Still, his father’s death helped prepare Morrie for his own. This much he knew: there would be lots of holding and kissing and talking and laughter and no good-byes left unsaid, all the things he missed with his father and his mother.
When the final moment came, Morrie wanted his loved ones around him, knowing what was happening. No one would get a phone call, or a telegram, or have to look through a glass window in some cold and foreign basement (Albom, 1997: 139-140).
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The quotation above is the narrator’s direct comment. It gives some clues on what Morrie misses from his parent’s death and what he wants for his own death. What Morrie misses from his parents are their show of affection, warmth, love, and their farewell before they died, which he does not have. When he dies, he wants his family around him, and they know what happen to him, unlike what happen with his parents. He does not want any of them receive a phone call informing his death, the way he received the news of his father’s death. He does not want any of them received a telegram informing his death and being haunted by it, the way he had for his mother’s death, and that “. . . he (Morrie) had been haunted by his mother’s death-notice telegram . . .” (Albom, 1997: 187-188). He does not want any of them to go to a city morgue to identify his dead body and being haunted by it, the way he had for his father’s death. “. . . he had been haunted . . . by his father’s corpse in the city morgue” (Albom, 1997: 187-188).
c. Dying because of ALS (Morrie’s own death)
Within the work, Morrie is described as an old man who is dying because of ALS. This is his third and last experience with death, this experience may influence his perspective toward death. Below is what the writer identifies from this experience.
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Johnson, 2009: 165). In his epiphany, Morrie has ask himself, “Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?” and decides that he wants to teach people how to die, as what the author wrote as, “Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me” (Albom, 1997: 10). His intention to teach people on how to die accidentally inspired many people. His aphorisms turned into a Boston Globe’s article headlined, “A PROFESSOR’S FINAL COURSE: HIS OWN DEATH” (Albom, 1997: 19). This article results in three times interview for an ABC’s television program called Nightline on what it is like to die. Morrie’s first appearance on Nightline caught Mitch’s attention. Mitch’s attention results in paying him a visit. Their reunion became a book writing project, a book which is not only became the world’s best seller, but also inspiring and changing millions of lives. A book which is contains Morrie’s teaching on how to die. The book is about his teaching on life seen from death perspective, his own death; as the aphorisms that he wrote, all are about “. . . living with death’s shadow . . .” (Albom, 1997: 18). This is the way Morrie prepares his death, by learning from his terminal disease and teach people on how to die. That is what the writer can identify from this experience.
From the characteristics and experiences above, the writer comes to a conclusion that what the author means with “Life’s Greatest Lesson” in the title of the novel, and the way he addresses Morrie’s teaching in his last class as “The subject was The Meaning of Life” (Albom, 1997: 2) within the novel – is Morrie’s teaching on how to die. This idea is supported by philosophical idea on death, as what the writer finds within the book Death and Philosophy as, “. . .
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death somehow has a pivotal role in giving sense or meaning to life” (Malpas and Solomon, 1998: 4). The sense and meaning to life that Morrie finds out from his death is to teach people how to die.
B. The Life’s Greatest Lesson Revealed through Morrie Schwartz’s
Perspective toward Death
From the characteristics and experiences presented at the previous sub-chapter, in this sub-chapter the writer now attempts to analyze how the life’s greatest lesson is revealed through them. This analysis will apply the theory of death and dying, and the moral-philosophical approach to reveal the greatest lesson of life. The life’s greatest lesson in this study is the moral implications, and moral teachings on how to live a human life and how to be
