Tragedy is a part of life regardless of who the individual is. How people cope with these tragedies varies from person to person. One thing we all have in common is the commonly used phrase “Never Forget.” Tragedy tends to define people and the memory of those people and their stories live on. The way people never forget these tragedies is through communication and telling their stories. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, explores the many ways that different people live with tragedy in their own lives and the way they tell their stories to other people. The book follows three main characters: Oskar Schell who is a funny nine year old boy who lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks; his Grandmother who lost her family in the firebombings in Germany and her son in the 9/11 attacks; and his Grandfather, Thomas Schell, Sr., who lost the woman he loved during her pregnancy. Throughout the story Oskar meets many people who are also coping and as they communicate and connect, Oskar is able to cope with his own loss. Foer touches base on many ways to cope with tragedy but really dives into how the stories live on through other people as the stories spread. This novel really explains the importance of communication to keep memories alive to help the characters cope. No matter how people copes with their tragedies, there is always a story to tell. Thomas Schell Sr. lets tragedy consume him which can be seen through many years of letters to his son. He used these letters to tell his son the story of the loss of Anna, his deceased love from his past, and his life with Oskar’s Grandmother. This letter kept him connected to his son to help him cope with losing Anna. The letters run from before his son was bo... ... middle of paper ... ...was finally able to do, he embraced the loss of his father as a part of his life and because of it was able to overcome it. Memories never die and stories live on forever. Foer takes us through a journey of tragedy and healing through the eyes of three individuals to teach us all a lesson on how people truly deal with loss. In this novel, it all boils down to how they let it define them and when they are able to embrace it. They truly will “Never Forget” as their stories live on in their writing and impact the lives of others. Everyone experiences death and loss at some point. Foer shows people everywhere to embrace it and accept it into their lives. Let the legacy of loved ones live on. One of the biggest challenges in life is to journey through grief and to heal. Whether you let it consume you, hide it, or embrace it, it is and always will be, a fact of life.
It was very sad to read about Frau Holtzapfel’s sons. First, Michael Holtzapfel, He fought in the battle of Stalingrad. “Stalingrad happened to my hand. I was shot in the ribs and I had three of my fingers blown off” (Zusak 466). This was an awful time for Michael Holtzapfel. Getting shot in the ribs and three fingers blown off, must have been extremely painful! Next, there was Robert Holtzapfel, he also experienced a tragic explosion. “His legs were blown off at his shins and he died with his brother watching in a cold, stench- filled hospital” (Zusak 469). This is so devastating, I could only imagine the emotions Michael felt that day, so sad. This adds characterization of the narrator because I remember the narrator saying in the beginning how
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 finds out his wife is pregnant. His wife, Oskar’s grandmother, lives across the street from Oskar and his mother, who helped raise him. Some of the major themes in this book include death, mourning, and trauma.
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
... loss of loved ones like Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Andi in Revolution or faced your own inevitable passing like Hazel Grace in The Fault in Our Stars, you are not alone. In confronting and facing death, these characters learn that death is merely a small part of living. It is an element of the human experience. To return to the wise words of the late Steve Jobs, “Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important…There is no reason not to follow your heart.” Living is the adventure. In facing their fears and sadness, these characters learn how to be courageous, how to hope, how to love, and how to live. Join them on their journeys by checking out one of the spotlighted books at your local library.
Throughout the lives of most people on the planet, there comes a time when there may be a loss of love, hope or remembrance in our lives. These troublesome times in our lives can be the hardest things we go through. Without love or hope, what is there to live for? Some see that the loss of hope and love means the end, these people being pessimistic, while others can see that even though they feel at a loss of love and hope that one day again they will feel love and have that sense of hope, these people are optimistic. These feelings that all of us had, have been around since the dawn of many. Throughout the centuries, the expression of these feelings has made their ways into literature, novels, plays, poems, and recently movies. The qualities of love, hope, and remembrance can be seen in Emily Bronte’s and Thomas Hardy’s poems of “Remembrance” “Darkling Thrush” and “Ah, Are you Digging on my Grave?”
Through an intimate maternal bond, Michaels mother experiences the consequences of Michaels decisions, weakening her to a debilitating state of grief. “Once he belonged to me”; “He was ours,” the repetition of these inclusive statements indicates her fulfilment from protecting her son and inability to find value in life without him. Through the cyclical narrative structure, it is evident that the loss and grief felt by the mother is continual and indeterminable. Dawson reveals death can bring out weakness and anger in self and with others. The use of words with negative connotations towards the end of the story, “Lonely,” “cold,” “dead,” enforce the mother’s grief and regressing nature. Thus, people who find contentment through others, cannot find fulfilment without the presence of that individual.
... conclusion, Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close doesn’t sugarcoat tragedy. It faces it head on and without a sensor, thus allowing it to maintain historical truth. The use of the scrapbook allows the reader to see into the mind of the narrators and reveals personality traits that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. By writing from the point of view of three different narrators, Foer has allowed the reader to see into the minds of people in three different stages of grief. He also focusing primarily on life after trauma, specifically differentiating between acceptance and attachment, and provides the reader with solid advice on how to deal with the tragic aftermath of trauma. Most importantly, the story of the Schell family shows the reader that they are not alone, and that traumatic experience do not have to define who she becomes as a person.
Mama, though she may be rough, makes us a pea soup each week and has me deliver our washings to our customers, though we are losing them quite quickly. I believe Mama fears we won’t have enough for when winter comes. Papa, a quiet, mannered man, is the best father I could ask for. When I have my terrible nightmares about Werner, he plays on the accordion for me. Lately, he has been teaching me to read and write better, so that I may be able to get to my rightful position in school instead of with the small children. He has even taught me to roll his cigarettes, which he sold to get me two new books for Christmas. Oh, Max! He recently came to live with us, but I have to keep him a secret. At first, I was completely terrified of him; however, once I got to know him better, I now consider him a friend, much like Rudy. We have much in common – fists, nightmares, and trains. Oh, just thinking of those nightmares makes me miss you even more. I wish you were here; my birthday is coming up, and my only wish is to see you once more, though it will never happen because the Führer took you away.. I must not let my hatred engulf me; I
daunting mass, lies on the page something so obscured that it can only communicate Grandfather’s amplified silence (Foer, #). As Atchison notes on this occasion, “no room yields no voice” (Atchison, 365). In this instance, Grandfather’s representation of language serves as a symbolic release as he struggles to express the disorder that resulted from his personal trauma. The chaos of Grandfather’s communication, therefore, serves not only to emphasize the survivor’s linguistic processing of his psychological aftermath, but also the effect that takes place on the audience as they attempt to make sense of his coping method.
The two main characters of the story, Irene and Clare, leave the reader wanting to know more about the life that two very different cultures live. The racism, society, and views of all people have changed since the time period the book was based off of. Irene is left unaccepted into the world and ashamed to be a Negro, where Clare is fighting to keep her Negro past a secret to everyone around her. Reading Passing by Nella Larson is an eye opening experience that will have a lasting effect on the reader.
Modern psychology describes five stages of grief that people go through when confronted with tragic circumstances. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This system was devised by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler in their collaborations on death, dying and grieving. The fact that these stages are experienced by so many shows that grief is a universal process. The term universal means that people anywhere in the world and at any time in history share the same feelings and psychological experiences. Though people experience loss in unique ways, they experience the grieving process in the same way, and the five stages are a universal process in coping with the loss. Oskar Schell, the nine year old protagonist of Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is the central figure in an exploration of the stages of grief. After Oskar’s father Thomas is killed in the World Trade Centre attacks on September 11th, 2001, the boy goes on a transformative journey through New York City, searching for clues to a lock, as well as searching for a way to make a better world reborn out of horror. Certain parts of the novel’s plot, as well as certain characters, are representative of the five stages of grief, and we will see that Oskar makes the necessary and universal trip through the grieving process and comes out at the end a more understanding and healing person.
In the book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, a nine-year-old boy named Oskar Schell experiences the tragic death of his father at a young age. Although his father died on September 11th, Oskar embarked on a mission to find a hidden message that he believed his father left him. Throughout this book, the movie, “The Blind Side” and in my own life the characters seek a way to find comfort in their lives and overcome challenges.
Published in 2005, Jonathan Foer's fiction novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close takes it's readers on an intriguing journey into the life of a boy named Oskar Schell. The novel follows the nine-year old as he travels around all of New York City in search of secrets behind a mysterious key and the connection it has to his father, Thomas Schell, who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. On his journey, Oskar accumulates many friends who aid Oskar’s grief as he aids them with theirs. As Oskar’s story blossoms, so do those of his Grandfather and Grandmother, who co-narrate the story with their grandson. These three narrations come together to introduce and develop a theme of grief. All characters within the novel grieve over something. They grieve of the loss of a father, a son, a sister; they are grieving over a marriage that lacks love; they are grieving for solutions that can never be resolved. Foer uses an assortment of characters to acknowledge a theme of grief that is slowly eliminated by Oskar’s uplifting spirit.
July 22, 1975, was a turning point in the career of Boston Herald photographer Stanley Foreman. Foreman was finishing up a usual day of city photography when he got a call about a fire. The fire was located in an older part of town. There was word that people may be trapped inside the building. Foreman followed fire trucks to the scene. On a hunch he went around to the back of the row houses. There he saw firefighter Bob O’Neil trying to save two people trapped on the fifth floor fire escape. A 2-year-old girl and her 19-year-old godmother were holding on the fire escape waiting to be rescued. Foreman set himself into a position to capture pictures of what he expected to be a routine rescue. But to his surprise there was a loud noise that changed all of that. The fire escape gave way before O’Neil could save the girl and her godmother. O’Neil was just a moment away from saving the two girls. Foreman caught this event through the lens of his 135 mm lens. He shot four photos of the two falling, than turned away before they hit the ground. The godmother, Diana Bryant, broke the fall of the young girl, Tiare Jones, but lost her own life a couple of hours later, Tiare survived. Forman learned that Bryant had died a few hours after developing and turning in his photos to the newspaper. With Bryant now dead he was unsure whether the newspaper would run the photos. But the next morning at 2:00am he saw the first morning edition with his photo almost covering the whole front page. And the rest of his photos were on Page 3. Foreman then went ahead and made a set of prints for the Associated Press by 4:00am. And his photos were seen worldwide by the very next day. The releases of the photos lead to many cities improving the inspection and ma...
his dream come true and he endured many hardships and hard work to attain success. However,