Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Five People You Meet in Heaven, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Redemption and Forgiveness
The Connection Between All Humans
The Cycle of Life and Death
The Value in Ordinary Life
Time
Gender Roles
Summary
Analysis
On earth, Dominguez is walking with a detached, hurried estate attorney into Eddie’s apartment. Dominguez comments on how tidy Eddie kept his apartment, and thinks of how he misses Eddie. Back at the maintenance shop, nobody has even touched Eddie’s things, as if they are all waiting for him to come back. Searching for things of value, Dominguez finds a box in Eddie’s underwear drawer containing a deck of playing cards, a black bowtie, a Chinese restaurant menu, an army metal, and a polaroid of a man with children, blowing out birthday candles. The estate attorney finds Eddie’s bank information. As they walk out, the attorney thinks happily of his own wealth in comparison to Eddie’s, and of how much more he has to “show” than just a “tidy kitchen.”
While the estate attorney thinks that all Eddie has to show for his life is a “tidy kitchen,” the small, seemingly random items Dominguez finds in Eddie’s drawer show that Eddie’s life had much more value than anyone looking for material wealth could know. The items are all mementos from a life full of feeling and content—of pain, battle, love, and family. The significance isn’t just in the items themselves, but in the fact that Eddie chose to keep them. Though Eddie wasn’t wealthy in riches, after his death the things that remain are his relationships and experiences.
Themes
