Randy Pausch Character Analysis

Randy Pausch walks out on stage to deliver the “last lecture” smiling and joking, seemingly, without a care in the world. Little to the audience’s knowledge of the elephant in the room, he is dying. With only three to six months left of good health, Randy is dying of multiple tumors on his lever. Randy displays how people can react to death differently depending on where they are in life, their coping capabilities, and what they find their joy in. Another factor that comes into play is how different cultures deal with death and dying. Several different countries that have different rituals are Scotland, Africa, and the United States.
The attitude that Randy portrays is very inspiring and thought provoking. How could someone who is literally on death’s door, be so positive about it all? One reason could be the importance of the relationships that he has made throughout his life. He talks about many connections that he made during his life in his lecture. These people not only inspired him, but they also helped …show more content…
The first phase is denial; this is when people initially find out that they are dying and are in disbelief. This leads to the second stage, where the person may be overcome with anger about their situation. The third phase is bargaining; were the person will try to do something, so that they can get better. This is then followed by the phase of depression. A sense of despair usually develops in this phase that leads to individuals being noncompliant with things like taking their meds. Finally, the last stage is acceptance, which is the grieving for all things that will be lost with death. These stages play out much easier in your late adulthood, than say in a child or young adult. Once you reach late adulthood, you sometimes have medical problems, but in general, death is just more expected and an unavoidable reality than if you are