Ways of Coping with Pain

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that the book 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' is the New York odyssey of the nine-year old genius Oskar Schell who begins a detective-like quest in his attempt to make sense of the death of his father, which occurred at World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The writer points out that the main theme of the book is thus the effort to cope with the losses that came after the greatest terrorist attack in human history. The writer maintains that it is not accidental that Foer chooses a nine-year old child as the main hero and narrator of this story. Rather, Foer intentionally avoids social realism and direct psychological interpretation, seeking to coat the bitter and unthinkably sad events in the imaginative and playful discourse of a child. The writer also notes that Foer's novel revolves around the issues of coping with pain. The writer concludes that the child character who is the hero of the book makes the novel seem a fairytale more than a realist story, but his imaginative way of looking at things is in fact the main source of emotion in the text.

From the Paper:

"Thus, Oskar's obsession with inventing an alternative universe becomes coherent in the book's narrative structure. The child attempts to create an imaginary world where people would be safer, where nothing is impossible, and where everything has a reason. It is his way of compensating for the loss he cannot fully grip. The novel even starts up abruptly with one of Oskar's invention: a teakettle that would be able to sing, to recite Shakespeare or to imitate his father's voice. Even from these first lines thus, the boy's struggle to atone for his loss through imaginative 'tricks', is evident. Throughout the novel, there follow many other similar inventions, all having the same function. A good number of them are symbolically connected with the idea of falling or with the force of gravity. This is an obvious hint to the dreadful images of people falling off the windows of the great towers, as were seen by eye-witnesses of the attack on September 11."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005

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