What force and strength cannot get through, I with a gentle touch can do. And many in the street would stand, were I not a friend at hand.
There a few things more frustrating in this world than an unsolved riddle. There is something in the idea that the answer is trapped within the question, trapped within you, that is maddening. They’re presented as a game, but they can become a type of metaphorical torture if the player doesn’t get the answer. That is what happened to Oskar Schell in Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Oskar created a riddle out of a chance occurrence and used it to channel his feelings about his father’s death.
The fact that Foer manages to get the readers to believe that the key was actually a part of a grand scheme created by Oskar’s father is incredible. The innocence and absolute faith that the nine-year-old has is transferred from the page to the reader, and I found myself waiting to see what his father had waiting for him. But of course, there was no grand scheme created by his father. The key was a metaphor for something much greater than any epic adventure Oskar had pictured when he found the envelope with just one word written on it: Black.
The name on the envelope could be the first hint at what the key is really for. Black has been a favorite color among everyone from priests to fashion designers. The color tends to stand for opposing ideas: rebellion and conformity, life and death, good and bad, acceptance and rejection. The ambiguity of the word could reflect Oskar’s internalized feelings about his father’s death. However, I think it plays a bigger role in being the opposition to Oskar. After his father’s passing, Oskar only wore white. Black is often the color of mourning and O...
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...at day had a key that could open the world to them and give them answers. There were no answers. So instead, Foer opted for equally touching but altogether more haunting moment: Oskar relinquishes control and opens himself to acceptance.
The whole novel he was in control of what was happening. He made lists and plans and compiled data to sort through the mess of a tragic death. The key was the mystery that he was going to solve. It was the final piece of the puzzle. He had the question; all he needed was the answer. Alas, Oskar never thought that the question might not be his. He just assumed. But in the end, the key served no purpose in the hands of Oskar, just as his father’s death served no purpose to him. The chain that bound him to it held him back from moving forward. Once the bond was broken and Oskar was forced to accept that that epic adventure was over.
The first passage, “A Riddle unto Itself” talks about the idea that I human being is like a riddle. However, as we know, riddles are meant to be solved, but if a human being is a riddle, “that it would thus be a contradiction if it solved its own puzzle because it would not longer be this enigma” (60). Because the human by itself cannot solve its own riddle, then someone has to solve or give the answers to that human, but who would this someone be. I would say that this is the
Denial was also used through the novel as a defense mechanism so that the person can protect themselves from the pain he or she was feeling at that point in time. When Oskar father Thomas Schelle, has gone missing him and his mother both decided it would be a good idea to “fill a suitcase with a poster of Oskar's father and post them all around town they refused to believe that Thomas could have been dead”(For 229). When Oscar and his mother put up these posters it gave them a sense of belief and hope that their loved one may still be alive. Another person the denied the death of a loved one was Oskar grandfather, they believed he was“trying to remake the girl he knew seven years before”, his beloved Anna, who had died in the bombing of Dresden (83). Many Psychologists have said that “ People grieve because they are expecting their loved ones to magically appear even though he or she is really gone”. Living in denial is very hard for a person and it is hard to move on into their day to day routines. Denials help delay the other stages of the grief and this stage usually lasts the longest. One of the first feelings that we experience after Denial is anger. Anger comes after the numbing of shock that something bad just had happened. Oskar puts all of his anger towards his mother because he thinks that his mother does not love his father anymore because he believes she is not honouring his name and memory. Seeing his mother being happy and continuing on with her life makes him think that she does not miss his dad (Foer 170). Oskar was releasing all of his build up anger towards his mother because he felt that it was her fault and that she was moving on without
The black box is a good representation of the central idea to the story. The box is painted in black, which has always been a universal symbol for evil and death.
At first glance, the readers have preconceived ideas that the story’s theme is one of a positive nature. One anticipates that there will be a character with good fortune; however, once reading it only becomes evident in the middle of the story. Readers begin to understand that he person who has the misfortune, the colored paper, is stoned to death in front of the whole community. This is evident when it states, “It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before…there was a stir in the crowd” (Jackson 249). This quote emphasis’s the negative connotation related to the black dot, which makes readers aware of the detriments related. Its relevance leads readers to understanding the development of the drama. Within the Hutchinson’s family, the mother, Tessie Hutchinson, is the victim to the lottery that
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
Throughout the book there were two ideas that kept reoccurring: Karl’s comics that he shared with his sister (“Winzig und Spatz”) and also when he realizes that all the people he knew were not who he thinks they were.
written in a way in which you have to solve a riddle in order to find
... his life trying to obtain a future to align with the loftiest of his dreams; now that he is no longer at the Œthreshold' looking forward, he has no where to cast his dreaming, idealizing eyes but back, and not just into his past, but even beyond the narrative bounds of the novel. Thus excluded from the last scene, we are in a sense abandoned to Frédéric's fate, looking back with longing to a time that never existed.
Children are seen as adorable, fun loving, and hard to control. Ida Fink uses a child in “The Key Game” to be the key to this family’s life. The setting is placed during the start of World War II; Jews all around were being taken. Fink uses a boy who doesn’t look the traditional Jewish, “And their chubby, blue-eyed, three-year-old child” (Fink). As they read on the emotional connection is stronger because there is a face to go with this character. Fink draws a reader in by making connections to a family member the reader may know. A blue-eyed, chubby child is the picture child of America. A child in any story makes readers more attached especially if they have children of their own. The child is three way too young to be responsible for the safety of the father, yet has to be. Throughout the story, we see how the mother struggles with making her child play the game because no child should be responsible like
When people are placed in difficult, desolate situations, they often change in a substantial way. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he undergoes many devastating experiences. Due to these traumatic events, Elie changes drastically, losing his passion in God, becoming disconnected with his father, and maturing when it matters most.
...t Max gave to Liesel as a gift. This book represents the power of words, and how words can make a difference in a person’s life.The readers are engaged because it is interesting know the back stories behind these books when we read about them in the novel. Finally, Hans’ accordion symbolises comfort in The Book Thief. When Hans leaves to go fight in the war, he leaves his accordion at home with Rosa and Liesel. This is the moment that Liesel know that Rosa truly does love Hans, although she might not show it. “Liesel watched. She knew that for the next few days, Mama would be walking around with the imprint of an accordion on her body” (429). Rosa, Liesel’s “Mama”, keeps the accordion close to her heart because it reminds her of her husband, Hans, whom she misses so much. In The Book Thief, symbolism attracts attention to certain thematic ideas and the novel itself.
Oskar was depressed and didn't know how to get on with his life, all he was capable of was mourning his father. He tried to reminisce and keep his dad's things; finding closure in material possessions that were once owned by his dad. Oskar thinks back to a time where his mom and him were clearing his dad's storage unit, and he wanted to keep everything that his mom was throwing out. He narrates, “‘So it will be okay if I throw away all your things and forget about you after you die?’ (102). This shows that Oskar is trying to find value and closure in something as meaningless as a razor. This becomes a bigger issue as he lets meaningless objects become the centerpiece of his life. Oskar finds a key in a envelope in his dad's bedroom closet with the word “Black” written on it, so he goes on a mission to find the lock it opens. The issue with this is the meaning he puts behind something as simple as a key. He decided to find and track every person with the last name Black, and ask them if they knew about they key. He states, “That night I decided that finding the look was my ultimate raison d'etre- the raison that was the master over all raisons - I really need to hear him (69). He tries to make the key an answer to his answers death, but in reality it's just a key that most likely will lead to nothing. He searches the entire city and drives
He struggles as an artist himself, as a writer, and as a human being. He feels misunderstood and tormented, perhaps exactly what this story is all about. The irrationality in the people that surround the Hunger Artist, and the inconsistency of the audience is reflective of this vision that Kafka wrote an autobiography of himself, as there is no reader who can truly understand what he is experiencing in life, his thoughts, ideologies, emotions, or intentions. Not even the remarkable admiration of the spectators for the Hunger Artist can, at least in the beginning of the story, be considered to be a success for him in Kafka's point of view because it is based on a serious misinterpretation of the artist's
The Lottery takes place on a clear, sunny, June day. It does not take long for the skies to turn gray as she introduces the readers to the black box. The black box is the central symbol of the short story. It suggests both death and necessity of change due to a combination of the passage of time and population expansion.
“The key has all of the shapes included on the map, so that we as map readers can match the key with the map to know what the map says”