Literary Elements

LITERARY ELEMENTS 

SETTING 

This story takes place in several different locations in both heaven and on earth. The novel begins at Ruby Pier. Eddie grew up very close to Ruby Pier because his father worked there for a living. Ruby Pier was thus a significant setting in Eddie's childhood; the novel flashes back many times to Eddie's childhood involving incidents at Ruby Pier. Ruby Pier is also where Eddie had his career as a maintenance man and is the very place where he was killed on his birthday.

When Eddie is in heaven, which is the bulk of the novel and also where he learns the five lessons, he visits five different settings: Ruby Pier, the battlegrounds on which he fought in the war, mountains, various wedding receptions and a river.

Eddie meets the Blue Man, in heaven, at Ruby Pier. However, it is not the Ruby Pier where Eddie was killed at the start of the novel; it was the Ruby Pier Eddie remembers from his childhood. When he awakes he notices the primitive, simple, amusements and their crisp white paint. As he runs around the pier he also sees the weight guessers, fortune tellers, and dancing gypsies. This setting is symbolic of Eddie's childhood; as a child Eddie was happy, naive and carefree. He was not yet discouraged, depressed or bitter. The white paint of the rides could represent Eddie's purity as a child; the primitive rides, weight guessers, fortune tellers and dancing gypsies are symbolic of childrens' naivety and love for the simple things in life. As the novel illustrates Eddie's experiences later in his life, we notice that the rides on the pier become more modernized and complicated as Eddie becomes older and depressed.

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The second setting in heaven is a war ground in the Philippians, where Eddie fought during World War II. The sky changes from a blue to a dark, charcoal grey. The scene is very dark with fallen trees, blackened rubble and the sound of bombs exploding in the distance. This setting is particularly dark because when...