“It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on.” -Unknown
September 11, 2001: a day that took over 2,500 innocent lives of men, women and children. A day we will never forget. The day Oskar Schell loses his father in the novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. In this novel Foer explores the life of nine- year- old Oskar Schell as he embarks on a journey that will take him through the five boroughs of New York City. On this journey he will experience pain, grief, alienation, friendship, forgiveness, and love. Foer uses enlightening point-of-views, real life imagery, and forlorn tone to tell this heartfelt story. Foer dives into the life of a little boy who had to grow up way too fast. Oskar has to experience things most people do not go through until they are older. He has to learn to accept what is, he has to leave his comfort zone, and he has to realize that his best friend—his father, is not coming back.
In the beginning of the novel Oskar is an open wound. He feels alienated, he hurts,
…show more content…
and he feels like no one understands him. Oskar is also very curious and smart, yearning to know everything he can. He likes to invent things that will better the world, he likes the feeling of his boots being lighter, and he liked playing Reconnaissance Expedition with his dad. Oskar`s point-of-views helps tell the story through his eyes. We see that Oskar changes from a little boy who thinks the world hates him, to a boy who understands. “I could tell that she didn’t love really love me. I knew the truth, which was that if she could have chosen, it would have been my funeral we were driving to.” (6) Oskar believes that his mother hates him. He feels as if she does not care that his dad, her husband just died. He does not understand that people cope in their own way. He later tells her he wished she had died instead of his father. He tries to apologize, but she just leaves. In his feelings` journal he crosses out EXTREMELY DEPRESSED and replaces it with INCREDIBLY ALONE. Oskar begins to change when he meets Mr. Black. “He turned around and started walking into his apartment. I guessed I was supposed to follow him, so I did.” (152) Despite their age difference, he is able to provide a friend figure to Oskar since he doesn’t have any of his own. He also provides a distraction, so Oskar is not bruising himself as much. In vice versa, Oskar is helping Mr. Black by bringing him out of his lonely state, and into the world. He has needed this for some time. Twenty-four years is too long to not experience anything. The two need each other in their process of healing. When he and grandpa are digging up Thomas`s grave, Oskar gets a sense of closure. “I knew it shouldn’t matter, because once you’re dead, you don’t feel anything. So why did it feel like it mattered?” (320) Then he opens it. “I was surprised again, although again, I shouldn’t have been. I was surprised that Dad wasn’t there. In my brain I knew he wouldn’t be, obviously, but I guess my heart believed something else. Or maybe I was surprised by how incredibly empty it was. I felt like I was looking into the dictionary definition of emptiness.” (321) Oskar`s journey helps him find himself, experience all of the components that make up losing someone you love, and this scene ties it all together. When he sees that the coffin is empty, he knows he can no longer deny the fact that his dad is gone. He has to accept it, even if he does not want to believe it. Imagery is another important rhetorical element that helps tell Oskar`s story beginning to end. In the beginning and throughout the whole book, Foer`s use of bringing the book to life with actual pictures and depictive detail allow readers to see and get sense of what Oskar is going through. “I couldn’t explain it: a fat and short key, in a little envelope, in a blue vase, on the highest shelf in his closet.” (37) When Oskar finds the key in a vase in his Dad's closet, he wears it like a pendent, over his heart, and is determined to find where it goes to. When the key starts to aggravate him, he puts a Band-Aid over his heart. This image turns into something more. His whole journey is a Band-Aid. In the end, it comes off, and he has to confront reality: that his dad is dead and nothing will ever be the same, and all you can do is love the people you have left. When Oskar visits the convenient store, he discovers something that is going to kick-start his adventure. “Come here,” she said, and she led me to a display of ten pens. “Look at this.” She showed me a pad of paper that was next to the display.” (44) Foer brings the book to life as Oskar looks at the display of colors. It is a break from the fast paced dialogue and allows the readers to see what Oskar is seeing. Oskar realizes that the name written on the envelope is someone’s last name which initiates his plan to locate all of the Blacks in New York City. When Oskar finds the pictures of the falling man, (325) he ripped the pages out of the book and reversed the order, so that the last one was first, and the first one was last. It looked like the man was floating upward towards the sky, and if that would have been his father, he would have missed everything, and they would have been safe. In this novel tone plays a big part of telling the story. Foer creates a melancholy tone early on in the book. In the beginning Oskar is a bereaved little boy who misses his father. It hits him hard that the person who understands him the most is gone. “Because even after everything I`m still wearing heavy boots.” (2) Heavy boots are a metaphor for all of the things that weigh him down, the biggest thing being that he wants his dad back, but knows that is not a possibility. When Oskar is giving his final performance of Hamlet, he wonders to himself about the universe and if life was worth all of the work it took to live. “What exactly made it worth it? What`s so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What`s so great about feeling and dreaming?” (145) He feels so numb inside, not knowing what to do anymore, that dying seems like a better option than living and for a nine year old to think that way is a tragedy. When Oskar and his mother have their heart to heart, (323) it creates a loving tone as his mother holds him close and comforts him. They have a conversation about everything that’s been going on and it helps Oskar understand that his mother has cared all along even if she did not show it. They talk about Thomas, falling in love again, and the day that changed their lives forever. This talk made Oskar understand life as simultaneously simple and complicated. The purpose of Oskar`s journey is to find himself.
He learns what it means to be a friend, to have a friend, to be alienated and in pain. All of these integral pieces help Oskar find out who he really is: a little boy who is misunderstood because people cannot fathom his curiosity, his intelligence, and the love for his dad. Another novel related to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. This is the story of a teenage girl, who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. These two books relate because both of the families lost someone who was very close to them. They are grieving and having a hard time facing the fact that their loved one is not coming back. The two authors beautifully executed the novels with their point-of-views, imagery, and tone, making the story hard to
forget.
Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief depicts the life of a certain young German girl named Liesel Meminger during World War II. Her story was told through the eyes of Death, who narrates both the blessings and devastation that occurred during that era. Liesel experiences living with her new foster parents and come across a boy named Rudy Steider who will later on become her best friend. As the story unfolds, Liesel gradually discovers the horrifying truth behind the Nazi regime as her foster parents take refuge of a Jewish man. Despite being in the midst of destruction and recently coping from her traumatic background, she undertakes on a journey of self-discovery and
Anton was a child when the Nazi collaborator, Fake Ploeg, was assassinated on his street. Consequentially, his family was killed and Anton buried his grief deep within himself, not wanting to evaluate his feelings and work through his grief. Even into his adult life,
“The Lovely Bones” is a book written by Alice Sebold. It was published in 2002, and it’s about Susie Salmon, a girl that was murdered and no watches her family and murderer from her own heaven. She tries to balance her feeling and watch out for her family since her murderer is still free and with nobody knowing how dangerous he is. In 2009, a movie adapted from the book came out as well.
The genre is “fiction, a supernatural thriller, and a bildungsroman” (Key Facts, 1). The Lovely Bones is written in first person. The novel is said to be complex, a distant place, and then a time of grieving from a loss of an innocent child who was murdered (Guardian, 1). The view of Heaven presented in The Lovely Bones is where you do not have to worry about anything, you get what you want, and understand why you want it. In this novel, Suzie teaches her family what she had learned from her life. The climax of the novel is when Suzie is able to achieve her dream to grow up when Heaven allows her to inhabit Ruth’s body and then make love Ray (Key Facts, 1). One fact about the novel The Lovely Bones is that the beginning of the book is famous for its intense descriptions on Suzie Salmon’s rape that she had to endure. It has been said from many people that The Lovely Bones is the most successful novel since Gone with the Wind (Spring, 1). The Lovely Bones was on the best-seller lists for several months in 2002 (Alice,
All in all, Oskar the victim of fates wheel comes out on top as the hero in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Being the unconventional hero he is, someone most people would just pass by on the street, manage to beat the odds and through perseverance, and courage he meet his
The Lovely Bones’s combination of themes work together to expose the raw emotion of a family in pain over the death of a precious loved one. The first and most significant theme to be presented in the novel is that of mortality. Throughout the novel, as Susie looks back over her violent death and its effects on her family, she makes a point that when someone dies, that person's desires and needs pass over with them into the afterlife (Thomas). For example, from watching her sister and Ruth Connor, she realizes that the concept of love is something she still wishes she could have, even in heaven. Her sister Lindsey meets a boy by the name of Samuel, and Ruth grows closer to Susie's first real crush, Ray Singh. These observations by Susie almost
The entire city was annihilated while 135,000 people were killed. The number of casualties is greater than those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The bombing of Dresden, Germany is why it took Kurt Vonnegut so long to write this book. The human pain and suffering is still fresh in the mind of the author twenty-three years later.
The Iraq war fiercely changed life in Iraq and in its neighboring countries. The war started in March 2003. The united states joined the war because of 9/11: an attack of mass destruction in New York city by a terrorist group named Al-Qaeda, which killed almost Three thousand people. The united states getting involved in the war; made it worse, and withdraw from the war on December 2011. During the war, life was difficult to survive emotionally for the soldiers, especially for those who are new. The historical fiction book Sunrise over Fallujah, by Walter Dean Myers, is set in Iraq. Robin "Birdy" Perry, a recruit from Harlem, NY, showed that war needs emotional readiness. Throughout Sunrise over Fallujah, the author uses
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.
¨We shall never forget, We shall keep this day, We shall keep the events and the tears In our minds, our memory and our hearts and take them with us as we carry on.¨ by: Anonymous (Memorial Website). An epic turn in history all around the world, around 3000 people lost their lives, the two world trade center’s crashed into pieces, the pentagon was crashed… all of this occurred on September 11, 2001. This date till today causes people to tear, as they remember themselves watching the event occur in person, TV or websites. The entire world was watching while it occurred. This attack caused a great impact all around the world, no one could believe what was happening and how. As soon as people got the news they realized that in a blink of an eye one of the biggest tragedies in the history of the United States of America had hit. This date caused negative impact on all kind of industries especially the aviation industry, in this paper you will learn exactly how this industry was affected.
September 11, 2001 is known as the worst terrorist attack in United States history. On a clear Tuesday morning, there were four planes that were hijacked and flown into multiple buildings by a terrorist group named al Qaeda. This group, led by Osama bin Laden, killed nearly 3,000 people. Out of those 3,000 people more than 400 police and 343 firefighters were killed along with 10,000 people who were treated for severe injuries. Many lives were taken, and to this day, people still suffer from the attack. September 11th is the most influential event of the early twenty-first century because it made an increase in patriotism, it caused a rise in security throughout the nation, and it had a tremendous effect of thousands of lives.
The first and most evident example of alienation and isolation in the novel is Len...
Elisabeth Kubler and David Kessler have a hypothesis in which they have discovered the five stages of grief. Many people experiences grief in many different ways, but they usually follow the 5 stages of grief. In the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly close they discuss the recent events of 9/11. Jonathan Safran Foer talks about grief through a nine year old's point of view about grief and the loss of his father. This novel was very real and personal it shows that type of human emotions you go through when you lose a family member, in this novel many people are able to go through the five stages of grief and it also shows how these characters are able to get through each death individually. Grief is one of the most powerful emotional forces
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.
...Bendemann's life abruptly changes with the death of his mother. However, along with this change, Georg has to deal with the many torments of the relationship with his father as well as the relationship with himself. Eventually, Georg loses the struggle with his father and allows himself to succumb to his subservient side by committing suicide. As a result, the emotional impact of this dramatic and complex story on the reader is a profound one.