Tuesdays with Morrie: The Professor Summary & Analysis

In a flashback, Morrie is eight, and a telegram comes from the hospital. Since Morrie's father, Charlie, can't read English, Morrie has to read the telegram out loud to his father—it says that Morrie's mother

At the cemetery, Morrie remembers his mother while they bury her. Until she got sick, she ran a candy store. After falling ill, she slept or sat by the window. When she yelled for Morrie to get her medicine, Morrie, who was often playing in the street, pretended he didn't hear her. He believed he could make her illness disappear by ignoring it. Morrie's father, Charlie, came to America from Russia to escape the army. He was in the fur business, but often didn't have a job. His English was very poor and he was uneducated, so the family relied on public assistance. They lived in an apartment behind the candy store with no luxuries, and Morrie and David would sometimes wash porch steps for a nickel.

After the death of their mother, Morrie and David's relatives decided to send them to a hotel in the woods in Connecticut, believing the boys would benefit from fresh air. Morrie and David ran and played in the fields, having never seen that much green before. One evening they went for a walk, and it began to rain. They stayed outside and played for hours in the downpour. The next morning, when they woke up, David found that he couldn't move. He had polio, and Morrie felt responsible after their fun in the rain the night before.

David was taken back and forth to special hospitals and forced to wear braces on his legs. In the mornings, Morrie attended synagogue by himself and prayed that God would take care of David and his dead mother. Later during the day, he'd sell magazines in the subway stations, giving the money to his family for food. At night, he ate dinner with Charlie in silence, and he hoped for but never received any warmth or affection from his father.

A year later, when Morrie was nine, Charlie remarried. Eva was a Romanian immigrant with an abundance of energy and warmth. Morrie found her to be very comforting. He and David shared a bed in the kitchen of their apartment. Eva kissed them goodnight, which Morrie loved because it made him feel like he had a mother again. However, the family was still very poor because of the Depression, and sometimes only had bread for dinner. When Eva sang to the boys at night, her songs were sad and poor as well.

Eva saw education as the only way to escape their poverty, and wouldn't allow anything but academic excellence from Morrie. Morrie studied every night, and Eva attended night school to improve her English.

Every morning, Morrie attended synagogue and said the memorial prayer for the dead for his mother. Morrie did this to keep his mother's memory alive, as Charlie had told him to not talk about her, so that David would believe Eva was his biological mother. This weighed heavily on Morrie, and he kept the telegram announcing her death for the rest of his life.

When Morrie was a teenager, Charlie took him to the fur factory to try to get Morrie a job. Morrie experienced major anxiety and fear standing in the factory. It was dark, hot, and dirty, and as workers frantically sewed, the boss yelled at them to go faster. On his lunch break, Charlie pushed Morrie in front of his boss and asked if there was a job for him, but fortunately for Morrie, there was barely enough work for current employees because of the Depression. Morrie vowed then to not do work that exploited someone else, or make money off others' hard labor. After that, Eva began asking Morrie what he was going to do. He ruled out law and medicine, and by default settled on teaching.