46 pages • 1 hour read
Mitch AlbomFor One More Day
Fiction | Novel | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Charles “Chick” Benetto
In the early chapters of the book, Chick is impulsive and desperate. He has given up on life, and cannot see past the mistakes he has made. It is clear that Chick’s family is very important to him: the two events that led to his downward spiral were, first, his mother’s death, and second, his not being invited to his daughter’s wedding. He has lost contact with his family, which he sees as both a symptom and a consequence of a larger failure.
As new details about Chick’s childhood come to light, it becomes clear that approval, and especially his father’s approval, is very important to him. As he grows up, the need for approval becomes a need for public recognition as a successful baseball player or, failing that, for success in another field. Once he feels that he has lost his chance to attain this kind of success, he loses the sense that life is worth living.
Chick is by far the most important character in the book, and the only one who undergoes significant changes. While other characters are described in more or less detail, their presence in the narrative is primarily a result of their relationship to Chick. Chick’s development as a character is almost inseparable from the book’s plot and structure. At the end of the book, Chick has developed a new attitude based on optimism and gratitude, and a new sense of himself as an individual, one that is founded on an appreciation of the relationships that sustain him.
Pauline “Posey” Benetto
Chick’s mother. Chick remembers her as vivacious and funny, the town beauty who was always perfectly made up. Posey was born to French Catholic parents and grew up during the Second World War. Her family was poor, so she had to drop out of high school and work. As an adult, Posey devoted her life to her family, and especially her children, making sure they received the
good education that she did not have.
Posey is also fiercely protective of her children, a trait that becomes clearer as Chick learns more about her. In Chapter 7, Chick remembers how his mother came to his defense when a librarian told him that the book he wanted to check out was too difficult for him. The sacrifices Posey makes for their well-being, including working as a housekeeper to pay for their educations, are driven by her conviction that, though their father might provide much-needed money, her children are better off without him in their lives.
Posey is the moral center of the story. Through her conversations with Chick, he gradually realizes that the lessons she tried to teach him as a child remain true and valuable, and he lives the rest of his life according to the values she has passed on to him.
Leonard “Len” Benetto
Chick’s father. A cold, distant man from an Italian Catholic family, Len joined the Army as soon as he turned 18 and was deployed to Italy. When he returned to the United States, he supported his family by running liquor stores.
During Chick’s childhood, Len rules their house with an iron fist. He is invested in Chick’s potential as a baseball player as a child and then later as a young adult, but is otherwise emotionally detached from family life. When Chick’s mother discovers his other family, she forces him to leave the family and cut off contact with their children. He later reemerges when Chick is a promising college baseball player, only to fade away with Chick’s promise.
Although Len is an undeniably important character, he is also in other ways a minor one. He is the foil to Posey; Chick’s moral development occurs as he gradually rejects his father and everything he stood for. He never appears in the main narrative, and is instead confined to the memories of his ex-wife and son. Posey and Chick gradually become closer as the pain of Chick’s father’s absence is resolved during their day together.
Maria
Chick’s daughter and only child. It is revealed at the end of the book that Maria is the story’s narrator, and that she wrote the book after an unexpected meeting with her father on the baseball field. Because she writes the book in her father’s voice, little of Maria’s own character comes through in the narrative. She is in her mid-20s, with long, chestnut hair, and at the story’s close she is recently married and expecting her first child. Her father is proud of her love of sports and the fact that she wrote for her college newspaper as a sports writer.
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By Mitch Albom
