Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, tells the story of a nine-year-old boy whose father died in the 9/11 terror attacks. It is a tale of Oskar and how he copes with the traumatic loss of his father and his quest to find closure for the events nearly a year later. He finds an envelope with a key, and embarks on a journey to find the meaning behind the word “Black” written on the envelope. Oskar believes that if he visits every person with the name Black in New York City, he may find out what the key opens. By doing this, he will be able to find some sort of closure that he has not had so far, as his father’s body was never found and the family had to bury an empty coffin. The day before Oskar’s father dies, he tells …show more content…
This story is a parable that showcases the series of steps one must go through before eventually arriving at the final action. In Thomas’s story, he uses the plot and structure of the tale to allow readers to see the full system. At first, the New Yorkers are “confused” (218) as to what has happened to their borough. When the townspeople have a “revelation” that “the Sixth Borough is moving”, they want to prevent it from happening. The people try “to reach out [their] arms” (219) and hold on to something they can’t “touch at all” (219). Despite the residents of Manhattan's desire for the Sixth Borough to remain as is, it is out of their control no matter how hard they "[try] to save it" (219). This is similar to Oskar’s reaction to the loss of his father, as he also wants desperately to hold on to him, which he does in the the form of the quest. Although Thomas seems to narrate these accounts in a negative tone, implying that failure to accept change is wrong, denial is a natural human phenomenon which is described as the first step to healing and acceptance. While grieving, the people of Manhattan deny what is going on around them and refuse to accept fate. Oskar’s quest is a representation of these first steps of the process because he can not accept what is happening, and tries to avoid the truth by going on his …show more content…
He reminds Oskar that "life has an abundance of clues" (221), which explains Oskar's approach to every hardship he faces. Refusing to leave his father's death with unanswered questions, Oskar chooses to find clues and looks for reasons and meaning. However, Thomas makes sure his son understands that while one never really lets go of their loved one, the attitude they have once moving on is equally important. Thomas and Oskar discuss whether or not Oskar is “an optimist or a pessimist” (221); readers discover that the young boy considers himself an optimist, because he is “positive and hopeful” (221). This positive outlook that his father teaches him enters into Oskar’s method of mourning. Believing that there is more to his father’s death than what meets the naked eye, Oskar tries to find meaning and answers, even though others don’t necessarily think the same way. Similar to finding sense behind the “peculiar fossil record of central park” and the “incongruous pH of the reservoir” (221), Oskar uses his quest as a way to find the meaning behind the envelope and key. The conversation between Oskar and his father shows how the story is a parallel to Oskar’s life. Oskar uses the lessons he learns from the story to cope with his father’s death. This specific message of believing, loving
After the death of her brother, Werner, she becomes despondent and irrational. As she numbly follows her mother to the burial
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is a non-fiction novel written by an American author. The book mostly follows the three main characters, Oskar, his grandmother, and his grandfather, Thomas Schell, Sr. Oskar is a nine-year-old boy from New York whose father died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He is exceptionally intelligent and curious and goes on a quest through New York City’s five boroughs to find the lock that belongs to a key his father had in his closet. Between chapters, a separate story is told of his grandparents marriage and life in Dresden, Germany.
the end of the novel when Finny dies, he feels like a part of him dies and that it’s his own funeral
When he writes, “I went to look for him, but at the same moment this thought came into my mind, “Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself”” (pg.101) This is one of the first times you see that the way he has changed mentally because in the beginning of the story, the only thing he cared about was keeping up with his father. This shows that he really doesn’t care about anything besides own survival anymore. Later when his father dies he writes “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep … And, in the depths of my being in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might find something like – Free at last!” In this you see that he thought of his father like he was a burden and that he was happy he no longer had to look after him. Also he says that he could not weep over his father’s death when his father used to be the only thing that kept him going, and he never wanted to be separated from his
In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar Schell can be seen confronting several different types of trials, some of these being man versus man conflicts, and others being man versus self. One of the major man vs. man trials Oskar faces throughout the course of the book is in the form of the noticeable and consistent bullying he takes because of his awkward personality and odd quirks. Kids like Jimmy Snyder can be seen exploiting Oskar’s social shortcomings verbally, and even being ready to turn towards physical bullying (Foer 189-192). As Oscar is not the knight in shining armor, he rarely stands up for himself, instead fantasizing about actions he would like to take and follows that up by saying, “that’s what I wanted to do. Instead I just shrugged my shoulders” (Foer 203). Throughout the course of the story, Oskar also faces many internal conflicts. The death of his father has left Oskar traumatized giving him fears of taking showers and getting into elevators…people with mustaches, smoke, knots, tall buildings, and turbans” (Foer 36). As Oskar continues on his quest, he eventually comes face to face with many of his fears, and is forced to confront and ultimately overcome them. Oskar’s final and arguably most daunting challenge is facing his own inner demons in regards to the death of his father. A year after his father’s passing, he has
he learns of the lies and deceit of his father, as he discovers his mother never died of a heart attack and his father
At the age of nine, Oskar was a troubled child trying to deal with the death of his father. He dealt with his grief through the use of his imagination. Oskar suffers from different neuroses and phobias. Since his father’s death, he has become depressed. Oskar starts off a journey to find the lock to his mystery key. Along his journey, he meets and inspires many people and eventually learns to deal with his grief. Being that grief is the main obstacle Oskar has to overcome, when he embraces the truth he is able to move on through his journey to find the lock.
There are three main characters that the reader gets to see deal with grief in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The first of which is the main narrator, nine year-old Oskar Schell. Oskar is in the denial stage of grief because he is keeping his father alive by going on one last grand adventure to find the story behind the key, thus keeping him alive. But of course, there is no reason for Oskar to have the key. Oskar tells Mr. Black, “There are so many ways to die, and I just need to know which one was his” (Foer, 257). Notice how his isn’t focusing on his father’s death here, he is focusing on the logic behind his father’s death. Right now, in his mind, it isn’t logical and therefore cannot be dealt with. Furthermore, it also detaches Oskar from the death because he views it more as a math problem than a traumatic event. He isn’t suggesting that he wants to know how his father died so that he knows what his last moments were like. He doesn’t want to know if he felt pain or if he was scared. He doesn’t even want to know, in this moment, why his father died; a question many of us would expect him to ask because, historically, many of us are still asking it. That’s not the emphasis he places on the question. Oskar wants to know how so he can categorize it, understand it, and move on without actually facing it.
As the reader, I was deeply overwhelmed with many mixed emotions such as compassion, sadness, happiness, disgust, remorse, and fear. I have pity for the characters in the book The Road, because “the man” and “the boy” have to pass day to day struggling to survive in a frigid bleak world where food is scarce “They squatted in the road and ate rice and cold beans they’d cooked days ago.” “Already beginning to ferment.”(McCarthy 29). The landscape is blackened, and mankind is almost extinct “The mummied dead everywhere.”(McCarthy 24). As I read on I noticed myself connecting more deeply with the characters. When the boy’s mother takes her own life, I was deeply saddened and my heart broke for “the boy” simply because his mom, someone he cherished and loved so much, had given up on hope and faith and deserted him. I just wan...
The events in the novel are predicated upon the death of Joel's mother. The account of his mother's death and the upheaval it caused for him (p 10 ) is more poignant to a reader who has experienced the untimely death of a parent than to one who has not. The reader who has experienced the loss can identify with everyone “always smiling” and with the unexplainable changes in one's own behavior toward others as one adjusts to the emptiness.
"Dad used to say that sometimes you have to put your fears in order" (The Only Animal, pg 87) I chose this particular quote because for someone who is Oskars age, the boy has a lot of courage and determination. It relates to the chapter because he goes on a journey to Queens, a
From this quote, one can infer that he knows his time is limited and that he wants his son to understand some things. By saying this, tells his son that goodness is out there, and that you just have to find it and learn from it. With this insight and many others much more that his father shares, the boy starts to understand more of what it means to live a life of goodness in a harsh world. His father in fact states that there is goodness in this harsh world, and that all he must do is find it. As the novel continues, the boy finds a new family.
The anecdotes also provide as a proof that every relationship has a lesson: “We sat around for a while and he told me more about his amazing life… It was getting hard to keep all the things I didn’t know inside me” (Foer, 154). As intellectual as Oskar may seem, it is important to remember that he is still a nine-year-old child with many more things to learn in life. The relationships he was able to create and develop allow him to gain further knowledge about life in general. Oskar learns and realizes that the world is much bigger than he thought, thus, showing his innocence as a