In Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, a New York Times Bestseller in 2005(CITATION1) written by Johnathan Safran Foer, a child named Oscar searches all over New York’s Five boroughs to get an answer for a mysterious envelope he finds with the word “Black” written on it. Inside the envelope is a key, to which Oscar believes is important because it could potentially belong to his father, who had died during the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Taking place a year after the attacks, Oscar continues to have trouble dealing with the grief he feels over the loss of his father. Oscar’s solution is to create two types of inventions. The first type of invention would help him remember his father and to mimic his father’s voice. The second type would modify the world, such as a building that would go up-and-down instead of an elevator. This is Oscar’s way of coping with the loss of his father. However, by imagining these inventions, he is actually replaying and retelling the story over in his head, which leads him to act strangely around similar situations that occurred during 9/11, such as airplanes and tall buildings. Oscar, a child living with his widowed mother, searches for the answer to a mysterious envelope that he believes belonged to his father, and struggles coping with the fact that his father had died during the attacks on September 11th, 2001.
Before delving into why Oscar acts the way he does, and responds to certain situations the way he does, the history of September 11th, 2001 is important to explain first to help understand the story. On September 11th, 2001, planes were hijacked and driven into the World Trade Center. By doing so, the Twin Towers collapsed, resulting in the death of almost 3,000 people. The planes were ...
... middle of paper ...
...up and down while its elevator stayed in place. So if you wanted to go to the ninety-fifth floor, you’d just press the 95 button and the ninety-fifth floor would come to you “ (Foer, 3). Once again, Oscar’s mind is racing and coming up with new ideas and inventions that are practically impossible, but it helps his mind stay distracted. Unfortunately, after Oscar thinks this, he reminds himself on September 11th once more. “Also, that could be extremely useful, because if you’re on the ninety-fifth floor, and a plane hits below you, the building could take you to the ground, and everyone could be safe…” (Foer, 3). It’s been over a year since the attacks took place in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, but Oscar is unable to move past the death of his father. He is still grieving, and although he tries to take his mind off of it, it always comes back to haunt him.
the commander of the Rebel army, General Robert E Lee. General Lee is skeptical too of
In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.
One of the many factors that have contributed to the success of Australian poetry both locally and internationally is the insightful commentary or depiction of issues uniquely Australian or strongly applicable to Australia. Many Australian poets have been and are fascinated by the issues relevant to Australia. Many in fact nearly all of these poets have been influenced or have experienced the subject matter they are discussing. These poets range from Oodgeroo Noonuccal Aboriginal and women’s rights activist to Banjo Patterson describing life in the bush. Bruce Dawe is also one of these poets. His insightful representation of the dreary, depressing life of many stay at home mothers in “Up the Wall” is a brilliant example of a poem strongly relevant to Australia.
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 which 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. His grandfather, Thomas Schell Sr. is mute and collects stacks of daybooks in which he writes what he needs to say. His first love, Anna, died in a bombing while pregnant with his child. Shortly after starting his new life in the United States, he runs into Anna’s sister, they get married, and he leaves her after he found out his wife was pregnant. His wife, Oskar’s grandmother, lives across the street from Oskar and his mother and helped raise him.
The book, Deaf Again, written by Mark Drolsbaugh, is an autobiography telling his life story which starts with a young boy growing up who goes through the process of losing his hearing and then, as he gets older, he struggles with trying to fit in as a normal child. When Mark was very young, he could hear fairly well then gradually he went hard of hearing until he eventually went completely deaf. Even though he had two deaf parents, the doctors advised speech therapy and hearing aids because they did not understand Deaf Culture and they thought that Mark would be a lot happier if he could hang on to his hearing persona. Throughout the rest of the book, Mark goes through a lot of stages of trying to fit in with everyone and eventually does find himself and realizes that being Deaf is not a disease, but just a part of who he is.
After reading Deaf Again I learned a lot of new things about Deaf culture and was drawn in by the story of Mark Drolsbaugh. "The hardest fight a man has to fight is to live in a world where every single day someone is trying to make you someone you do not want to be" e.e cummings. I was brought into the book immediately from this quote and realized how difficult it must have been for Mark to find his identity. He was trying to hang on to his hearing in fear of going deaf as if there was something wrong or not proper with being deaf. It took him a long time, twenty-three years to realize that the Deaf culture is receiving and it was there for him to embrace the entire time. It would be difficult to be able to hear and then slowly lose your hearing while having to communicate in the world we live in. Both his parents Sherry and Don were Deaf and I enjoyed reading the part where Mark was brought into this world through childbirth and the signing and conversation that was going on inside while the process was taking place. Like the anesthesia machine not working, which had to have been painful.
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
After a reader first notices the title of Firoozeh Dumas’ essay, “The F Word”, it may be hard to believe her writing is not about curse words. Her writing is about her experience moving to America and living in a society that is unwilling to accept outsiders. Immigrants face hardship when they come to the United States and she knew that before she moved. But she never thought living with a foreign name would be so challenging. Dumas brings light to those difficulties and how she dealt with them through sentence structure, excellent word choice, and well-written metaphors and similes.
One’s identity is influenced by many things. It’s something that one has a choice of what he wants to become. One has a personal choice as to what identity he possesses; for instance, he can choose what he likes, who he wishes to be friends with, and what he wears. After all, “Fashion is an expression of personal identity” (Latterell 11). Queen Latifah states, “All things start inside your soul and work outward” meaning that it is one’s choice as to what he lets work its way out (Latifah 34). People have even made personal choices that affect their identity by changing their name. Just as Firoozeh Dumas describes in The “F Word”, “Thus I started sixth grade with my new, easy name and life became infinitely simpler” (Dumas 86). People made fun of Dumas’ name, Firoozeh, and thus made her want to change her name to fit in; she changed her identity. An identity is mainly comprised of personal choice.
his goal is to bring back proof of the wolves decimating effect on the northern
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
George W. Bush’s “9/11 Address to the Nation” is a speech in which he talks about the catastrophic event on September eleventh, 2001. Two airplanes crash into the Twin Towers in New York City on this day, shocking the entire world. He addresses this speech to the people of America on the night of the disastrous event, to let the people of the United States know what is going on. This speech explains how the United States is a strong country, the motives behind the event, as well as to bring the United States together and stronger.
For as long as man has walked the earth, so has evil. There may be conflicting moral beliefs in this world, but one thing is universally considered wrong: serial killers. Although some people may try to use insanity as an explanation for these wicked people, they cannot explain away the heartlessness that resides in them. As shown in The Stranger Beside Me, infamous serial killer Ted Bundy is no exception to this. Even though books about true crimes may be considered insensitive to those involved, the commonly positively reviewed book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule handles the somber issue of Ted Bundy’s emotionally destructive early life and the brutal crimes he committed that made people more fearful and aware of the evil that can exist in seemingly normal people well.
Weird. If the relationship between the characters of Grandpa and Grandma could be described in one word, it would be weird. Then again, Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a shining example of everything unconventional, exploring the nuances of grief through multiple and varying perspectives, each with a unique approach that attempts to achieve recovery and solace. The relationship of Grandpa and Grandma is an example of one such attempt at recovery, one that tries desperately to reconcile past traumas, yet ultimately acts as a futile effort that harbors more grief and denial.
In the short story “Being There”, by Jerzy Kosinski, there are multiple examples of satire that are displayed throughout both the book and the movie. A few of them are: media, death, politics, and racism. The satire of the media was very similar in the book and the movie. Media played a big role in society and still does to this day.