Eddie’s Mother Character Analysis in The Five People You Meet in Heaven

A gentle, comforting, stay-at-home mother devoted to her children and to Eddie’s father. She often tries to stop her husband and other men from violent and destructive behavior, but is usually helpless against it. She is always interested in Eddie’s life, and especially in his courtship with Marguerite. She refuses to leave her husband’s bedside during his illness. When he dies, she becomes delusional and continues to believe he is alive. Eddie’s mother has only loving and positive traits, and thereby represents an angelic female ideal, opposite to her husband.

Eddie’s Mother Quotes in The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The The Five People You Meet in Heaven quotes below are all either spoken by Eddie’s Mother or refer to Eddie’s Mother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Hachette Books edition of The Five People You Meet in Heaven published in 2006.

Later, she will walk him along the pier, perhaps take him on an elephant ride, or watch the fishermen pull in their evening nets, the fish flipping like shiny, wet coins. She will hold his hand and tell him God is proud of him for being a good boy on his birthday, and that will make the world feel right-side up again.

Related Characters: (speaker), ,

Page Number and Citation: 24-25

Explanation and Analysis:

Sometimes you have to do things when sad things happen.

Related Characters: (speaker),

Related Symbols:

Page Number and Citation: 45

Explanation and Analysis:

Eddie’s Mother Character Timeline in The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The timeline below shows where the character Eddie’s Mother appears in The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...laugh and cheer. Eddie doesn’t like being upside down, and afterward he clings to his mother as she takes him out for a walk along the pier until the “world feels... (full context)

...birthday, and he is complaining that he doesn’t want to attend the funeral that his mother is dressing him for. His mother explains that, “Sometimes you have to do things when... (full context)

...Eddie’s seventeenth birthday, and he is sitting on his bed reading comic books when his mother calls him out to celebrate. In front of all their family and friends, including their... (full context)

Eddie is recovering in a Veteran Affairs hospital, after being returned home from war. His mother, father, brother, Marguerite, and Mickey Shea come into his room with a cake, singing “Happy... (full context)

...someone else to take care of Eddie while he drank and gambled. In contrast, Eddie’s mother was loving and protective. When Eddie got a bit older, his father habitually came home... (full context)

...again—not even at Eddie’s own wedding a couple years later. Throughout his life, whenever his mother or anyone else pleaded with his father to speak to him, Eddie’s father told them... (full context)

...a week before with a bad cough from a drunken night on the beach. Eddie’s mother is deeply distressed, and she hardly ever leaves her husband’s hospital room. Eddie and Marguerite... (full context)

...in Ruby Pier, saying, “This ain’t good enough for you?” After his father’s death, Eddie’s mother starts to lose touch with reality, and Eddie and Marguerite decide to move in with... (full context)

...On a storming night, Mickey Shea is drunk and sobbing in the kitchen, and Eddie’s mother tends to him. Mickey follows Eddie’s mother into her bedroom, pushes her against a wall,... (full context)

...he saved Mickey Shea. Eddie is shocked to learn about Mickey’s attempt to rape his mother, and angrily says he would have let Mickey die after what he did. Ruby reminds... (full context)

...those he loved. Though they were nowhere near, he called out the names of his wife, his sons, and Mickey. Then he died. (full context)

...eighty-second birthday, Eddie takes a taxi to the cemetery and visits the graves of his mother, brother, briefly his father, and finally Marguerite. He thinks of her, and of how even... (full context)