The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride

Content Warning: This section contains discussion of suicide and child death. 

Many characters in The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride struggle to accept the passage of time. At the age of 100, Murray has lived through a great deal of change. He remembers the past with fondness: his 80-year marriage to Jenny, his baseball career, and the politeness and respect that people used to show one another are all things he wishes he could have back. His participation in the life-drawing class further reminds him of his old age and makes him wish for a return to his youth. As the story progresses, Murray confronts the passage of time and finds his place in the modern world. In doing so, he has to move beyond certain prejudices and biases. When he first meets Jason, for instance, he is perturbed by Jason’s speech pattern and his use of slang such as “dude” and “man.” In Murray’s day, children used honorifics when talking to adults as a sign of respect; this concept is foreign to Jason. As he gets to know Jason better, however, Murray realizes that Jason has been raised with different social norms; he is not necessarily disrespectful, he simply is a child of his time, just as Murray once was.