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Tuesdays with Morrie makes it very clear that the world is absolutely saturated in all sorts of media. Mitch works for a newspaper (as well as television and radio), both he and Morrie read newspapers. And yet, the book’s depictions of media, with the exception of Morrie’s appearances in his Nightline interviews, are not at all positive. In fact, the media portrayed in the book is time and again connected with death: television focuses relentlessly on the OJ Simpson trial, while during his weekly travels from Detroit to West Newton Mitch reads about various fatal tragedies in the newspaper. Further, Mitch’s own life as a media celebrity is portrayed as full of speed and action, but devoid of meaning or fulfillment. And it is the absence of media, when Mitch's writers' union goes on strike and he suddenly finds himself with the time to visit Morrie weekly, that allows Mitch to reevaluate his life and make positive changes to his personal culture. Media, then, becomes a kind of representation of the unfulfilling and materialistic modern culture that Morrie criticizes.
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Media Symbol Timeline in Tuesdays with Morrie
The timeline below shows where the symbol Media appears in Tuesdays with Morrie. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Audiovisual
...death. He shares these with friends, one of whom passes them on to the Boston Globenewspaper, which then publishes a feature story about Morrie.
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The Fourth Tuesday: We Talk About Death
Mitch and Morrie are in Morrie's office, and the newspaper Morrie's been reading has a photo of a baseball player on the front page, leading...
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The Eighth Tuesday: We Talk About Money
This week, Mitch has brought a newspaper to show Morrie a particular quote from a media mogul who had recently failed to...
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The Ninth Tuesday: We Talk About How Love Goes On
...are digging in and accusing each other of not communicating. Mitch says that stories in the news are equally depressing—a teenage girl was hit by a thrown tombstone as she drove with...
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The Eleventh Tuesday: We Talk About Our Culture
...and when the foreman reads that Simpson has been found not guilty, Connie shrieks. The TV shows black people celebrating outside the courthouse, and the decision is called momentous. Connie leaves...
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The Audiovisual, Part Three
...very happy, and Mitch as the narrator remarks that Morrie coaxed compassion out of the television industry .
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...now to listen to music and look out his office window and is reading the newspaper less. Koppel and Morrie discuss Stephen Hawking, who suffers from ALS and speaks through a...
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The Fourteenth Tuesday: We Say Good-Bye
As he waits in the living room, Mitch picks up the newspaper and reads about two children who had shot each other with their fathers' guns, and...
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