The theme of grief in Jonathon Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close depicts the devastating impact of 9/11 on Oskar Schell. Oskar is struggling to figure out the reason of his father’s death as he desperately searches for answers. Oskar’s struggle to heal following his father’s death is ultimately successful when he releases his anguish and finds closure, emphasized through the symbolism in the settings. Thomas Schell’s story of the Sixth Borough symbolizes Oskar’s struggle in society during the aftermath of 9/11 and the death of his father. Oskar’s vivid imagination and high anxiety levels make it difficult for him to form friendships and he is often isolated. “Some of the kids cracked up. I knew they were cracking up in The Sixth Borough, being an island, represents the pervasive isolation Oskar feels daily. “The eight bridges between Manhattan and the Sixth Borough strained and finally crumbled, one at a time, into the water. The tunnels were pulled too thin to hold anything at all” (Foer 219). The bridges symbolize his father’s attempt to assimilate Oskar into society. Without his father’s guidance, Oskar feels isolated and alone, slowly crumbling and sinking below the surface of society, much like the Sixth Borough. Oskar is refusing to let go of his dad because of his emotional attachment to his father. "I opened the coffin. 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
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.
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
Baldwin gives a vivid sketch of the depressing conditions he grew up on in Fifth Avenue, Uptown by using strong descriptive words. He makes use of such word choices in his beginning sentences when he reflects back to his house which is now replaced by housing projects and “one of those stunted city trees is snarling where our [his] doorway used to be” (Baldwin...
After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.
...continue his dream. Both grief and compassion are transformative experiences, and this novel keeps that idea in the readers’ heads throughout every chapter.
From the years of 1938 to 1945, while the entire world was preoccupied with World War II, the Nazi Party led by dictator Adolf Hitler planned and executed the killing of almost six million Jewish people.This calamity snatched the innocence of those who survived in inconceivable manner. They suffer withanimmense amount guilt simply because they believe that are wrong for surviving whereas their loved ones paid the ultimate price. In recent years Holocaust survivors have had an “increased risk of attempted suicide” (Barak, Y). For these people forgetting is a crime but recollection will not allow them to move. However there are some survivors who found a way to optimistically look towards the future. Holocaust survivor and writer, Ellie Weisel, summed up these feelings by explaining that, “Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.” Learning from the past and growing up comes with a certain end of childhood innocence without which the progression to maturity cannot occur. This enlightenment and the journey from innocence to experience are prominent themes in both The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephan Chbosky. The former outlines four days in the life of a troubled teenaged boy named Holden Caulfield who is expelled from his preparatory school and spends his time roaming the streets of New York City. The latter is a compilation of letters written by a young boy, who goes by the alias Charlie, in which he discusses deepest feeling regarding his grief stricken adolescence. Both Chbosky and Salinger explore the behaviours and minds of teenaged boys who are trying to find themselves in a world that they do not fully understand yet. However, bot...
In the last chapters of the book, music becomes a powerful symbol of unity and perseverance. As each character makes their way down the streets New York for the one year memorial service for 9/11 victims, they hear and feel the power of the music ringing in the air. During the ceremony, “a lady was going to play the flute and, one after another, relatives of those who were killed were going to walk up onto the stage and read the names, nearly three thousand, out loud” (Baskin 178). The act of reading all the names is symbolic in itself, representing each individuals’ life and accomplishments, however the music playing while these names are read is what brings all of the individuals together. All of the individuals whose names are called are united by their unexpected death and each of the relatives who speak the names are united by their heart wrenching grief. The flute music playing in the background also contributes to the somber atmosphere of the event.
Within society, there are certain standards of behavior and expectations that one must be expected to comply by, and failure to do so can result in critical and discouraging prejudice. This unrelenting and derogatory hatred can often cause dire reactions, such as a loss of morale and self-confidence, demonstrated significantly in The Fall of a City, by Alden Nowlan. In the story, Teddy, an eleven year old boy, is mocked at by his uncle for occupying himself with paper dolls, failing to meet society’s standards of maturity that a boy of his age is expected to abide by. As a result of his uncle’s mockery, Teddy’s passion and fondness of his imaginary world disappears, and in a fit of rage and anger, he demolishes his paper world. Teddy’s destruction
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the audience is led through a very emotional story of a Holocaust survivor’s life and the present day consequences that the event has placed on his relationship with the author, who is his son, and his wife. Throughout this novel, the audience constantly is reminded of how horrific the Holocaust was to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, the novel finds very effective ways to insert forms of humor in the inner story and outer story of Maus. Although the Holocaust has a heart wrenching effect on the novel as a whole, the effective use of humor allows for the story to become slightly less severe and a more tolerable read.
A powerful scene that is flowing with anger is when the narrator’s dad’s brother dies in a horrific accident. The narrator’s mom told him about his dad’s brother because she wanted him to understand what the world was capable of doing and to show him how his dad’s anger has prevented him from moving forward in
By means of comic illustration and parody, Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel about the lives of his parents, Vladek and Anja, before and during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II delves into the emotional struggle he faced as a result of his father’s failure to recover from the trauma he suffered during the Holocaust. In the novel, Vladek’s inability to cope with the horrors he faced while imprisoned, along with his wife’s tragic death, causes him to become emotionally detached from his son, Art. Consequently, Vladek hinders Art’s emotional growth. However, Art overcomes the emotional trauma his father instilled in him through his writing.
In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Oskar shows so much growth and character development throughout the entire book. It shows how he grows through the entire book piece by piece. There are a lot of nature and artifacts that entire twin with his growth as a character. These things show so much symbolism with the character and who he is and this provides him with depth. Nature and artifacts that are the cause of his growth from child to a mind of a young adult are the Empire state building, Yorick’s skull, and his father’s casket, and the key his father gave him.
How does one get PTSD? What causes PTSD? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event. Either experiencing or witnessing it. Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close tells a story about a nine year old boy, Oskar Schell, who loses his dad during 9/11 then later finds a mysterious key in his dad’s closet and decides to go on a quest to see what it unlocks. Oskar is suffering from PTSD. He represses the emotions he feels, bottles it up, and not talk about it.
One is struck by the extreme cruelty and hardship he faced while only an emotionally vulnerable child and adolescent. As Wright generalizes his own experiences to show how the society functioned at the time, one may wonder how many individuals were crushed by similar circumstances.
The fictional life and death of a twelve year old little boy named Robert is vividly articulated in this moving tale by Thomas Wolfe. The reader learns of the boy’s life through four well developed points of view. The reader’s first glimpse into Robert’s character is expressed through a third person narrative. This section takes place on a particularly important afternoon in the boy’s life. The second and third views are memories of the child, through the eyes of his mother and sister. His mother paints the picture of an extraordinary child whom she loved dearly and his sister illustrates the love that the boy had for others. Finally, an account from the narrator is given in the ending. It is in the last section of this work that the narrator attempts to regain his own memories of his lost brother.