Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Death and the Underworld in _The Five People You Meet in Heaven_
Describe how your assigned theme occurs in the movie, connect it to a story we read in the text, and draw a conclusion about the value of death or the underworld in the Journey of a Hero. Remember to go to the next level of analysis. Don't just describe, analyze why your theme is important to the overall story. These are due by class Monday, March 1st. Late entries will be deducted 50%.
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Eddie portrays the characteristic of a scapegoat many different times throughout the movie. As he speaks the five people that he meets in heaven we learn of the many sacrifices that he made for them and that they mad for him. The most notable sacrifice that Eddie made caused his death. This sacrifice is where he risked his life to save that of a little girl. He saved the girl by pushing her out of the way of a free falling, malfunctioning ride. Although saving her he could not avoid being crushed himself. One can only think of this sacrifice as one that helps to better a group of people or a society. Eddie's being the scapegoat for other people can be closely related to the story of "The Corn Mother". In this story the corn mother experiences the suffering of her people as there is a drought and they are not able to grow food to support themselves. The corn mother takes it upon her self to make a self sacrifice that not only supply her people with food for a long time but also how to grow food for themselves as time goes on. She makes this ultimate sacrifice for the well being of the people around her as did Eddie in saving the life of the little girl. This theme is very important to the development of a good overall story because it gives the reader or spectator a chance to see who the hero is. Not only do they see who they are but they get to see how it is that they move on to the next step in life and death. As they move through the cycle the spectator has the opportunity to see why the hero is where they are now.
ReplyDeleteEddie Maintenance, as the children call him, is a simple man living a simple life who has affected many peoples lives that he had no idea about. Eddie has lived his whole life wanting to get an engineering job and leave Ruby peer because it reminded him of his dad and he and his dad were on bad bad terms. Many years later we find out that the only time he left Ruby Pier was to fight in the war which was short lived because of an injury. So Eddie found himself working there many many years later, While on his break he hears screaming and see that a cable is going to break and the cart is going to fall and hurt someone. Before the cart falls he sees a little girl sitting underneath it so he runs and pushes her out of the way but in the process is killed by the cart that fell. Eddie then Leaves behind the physical world and goes into the temporal world there he would have trials to pass and knowledge to gain so that he may have peace in his eternity in heaven. This movie is very much like the Hermdr and Balder story that we read in class. People are gathered around balder throwing stuff at him, like stones, chairs etc. all of the stuff being big and heavy but Balder is unfazed by the debris, he is a very big and strong guy but also has a weakness like Eddie from the movie being soft towards children and the worry for their safety killing him. Except Balder was weak against mistletoe and was killed when someone through it at him unknowingly. This shows his leaving from the physical world just as Eddie left the world from an outside source.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie "the five people you meet in heaven" Eddie is born again when he is killed trying to save a young girl that was in the way of a falling roller-coaster cart. Eddie then appears in different peoples heaven. for this he must confront five different people who have had some effect in his life. Through the five people eddie meets he learns a lesson from each of them. Eddies renewal into heaven is similar to the story of Wanjiru. In the story, Wanjiru fell deep into a sand pit. a young man who had loved her went to the same place as Wanjiru. Wanjiru "you were sacrificed to bring the rain and now the rain has come, i shall bring you back". Both of them, Eddie and Wanjiru being born again. In conclusion, i believe that in the movie "the five people you meet in heaven" everyone should learn from there mistakes.
ReplyDeleteIn “The 5 people you meet in heaven,” death is expressed as something positive. Rather than dealing with it as an ending, it talks about death as if it were more of a new beginning. The movie does this by taking the main character, Eddie, into a whole new world after his death. This world is essentially heaven. He experiences the heaven of others who have sacrificed themselves for Eddie. Eventually he finds out that he saved a small girl when he died. Almost immediately after that, he is taken to a place with every person ever saved by everyday maintenance on the rides at ruby pier. We are shown the positive nature of death by the five people Eddie met in heaven. Each person was sacrificed so that Eddie could continue to live his life. This introduces the idea that every time one person dies, they are giving the gift of life to somebody else. This same idea comes up in the story of Wanjiru, death is a positive thing, because like the people who died to save Eddie’s life, Wanjiru sank in the quicksand and essentially died to save her people from drought. When Wanjiru died, it began to rain like it had never rained before. This was the result of Wanjiru’s sacrifice of herself. Much like Eddie’s sacrifice of his own life to save the girl, or the blue man’s sacrifice to save Eddie, Wanjiru’s death serves the purpose of saving the lives of other people. Death is an essential part of life, and it serves the purpose of renewing life. People of ancient agricultural culture saw the amazing powers of ancient fertilizers, which were essentially made up of dead things and feces, in their crops. When this phenomena was observed, people realized the cyclical nature of the universe, and as a result, they must have concluded that with death comes life, and with life comes death. This philosophy is what lead to the idea of the positive nature of death.
ReplyDeleteComparisons between the night journey and "five people you meet in heaven"can easily be drawn. the five people Eddie meets in heaven are all people from his past, and they all shed some light on his life, or what little he knew about his life. The mythology book explains that the night journey is the "crucial stage of self-exploration in the face of a life already lived." This could not relate to Eddie's story any more. Eddie thought that his life was a failure, as he didn't accomplish anything. The five people he met in heaven convinced him otherwise, by telling him of how his life influenced others lives more than he could imagine. It was not until Eddie talked to all five of his people in heaven and literally saw all of the people who had been influenced by his work as a maintenance worker at Ruby Pier that he realized that his life wasn't a complete failure and that he had affected many peoples lives. the only comparison i can draw between "the five people you meet in heaven" and a story that we read in class is that it takes Moses going to hell to realize how good his life was and how pleasant heaven was. Moses prays to God to save his people (of Israel) and hopes they never have to go to such a horrible place. The common archetypal idea of turning death into a good thing is present in every culture, as no one actually knows what happens when one dies. myths such as "five people you meet in heaven" and the story of moses going to hell allow people to cherish what life they did have.
ReplyDeleteThe tree appears in 5 People You Meet in Heaven when Eddie is reconnected with his former army captain. At first, it offers him shelter from the surrounding war, but it then allows him to communicate with his old leader. In this case, the tree is representative of a new beginning. It allows Eddie to recreate his past and to relive his prisoner experience, which gives him a new outlook on how much he accomplished in his life. The tree as a symbol for a new beginning can also be seen in the story of Attis, by how Attis castrates and kills himself for the sake of Agdistis. Though the tree is representative of a new beginning in these stories, it has a different significance in the overall journey of the hero. In the hero's journey, the tree is representative of the earth, or the mother of all mankind. When the hero is connected with it, he is essentially reconnected with the mother of all man, and this is why he is able to be born anew.
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