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It is within our human nature to try to make sense of things. Humans will try their very best to turn chaos into order. This is the way we have been since the beginning of time. Different civilizations created hundreds of deities in order to create meaning and purpose for their lives. This is basically what religion is. The modern culture seems to need and have an explanation for everything. Chaos in the lives of people can cause many problems. People have to cope with these problems until order is restored in their lives. This is a never ending cycle. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Foer explores the theme coping through the dichotomy order vs. chaos.

Throughout the book, Foer gives the readers stories and different perspectives from Oskar’s grandparents. They each write letters to either their son or grandson. A great deal of the writing in these letters describes the relationship between Grandma and Grandpa. Readers learn about how Grandpa was always in love with Grandma’s sister. Her sister died in the bombing of Dresden. Years later Grandma and Grandpa meet in a diner and get married. The love between the two is not where it should be. They build their relationship on rules and things they can or can’t do. “So many rules, sometimes I can’t remember what’s a rule and what isn’t, if anything we do is for its own sake” (Foer 108). They divide up their apartment into places that are something and others that are nothing. In their apartment, “Nothing Places” we areas “In which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we never would look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment in which one could temporarily cease to exist” (Foer...

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...ere constantly working to restore order in their lives. This never-ending cycle is part of human nature. Each chaotic event is counteracted with the attempt at order. This book is no different. Each event that can be classified as chaotic in this book results in someone trying to create order out of it. Grandma and Grandpa create private places and rules as a means to rid their lives of chaos. Oskar adopts different coping methods into his life to try to live without his father. Mom seeks individual and group counseling to try to make sense of life without her husband. Each of these main characters suffers from chaos. They have all their own ways of coping with their chaos. Eventually, some sort of order is restored back into their lives. In this book, Foer tells a realistic story of people using different coping methods to cross the bridge between chaos and order