Client Last Name - Case Study Example

Client Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Story of the Comedy of Grief Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer is an amazing story of a journey through grief for a young boy named Oskar. This precocious and talented child describes his experiences with the matter of fact nature that a child would adopt under such terrible circumstances. The biggest secret he holds is a secret the tears him apart, but also sets him on a journey to discover the memory of his father. His biggest obstacle is the one that faces everyone - that of communication. In times of grief, communication is the first casualty. Oskar is a child who has been reared under idealistic terms. He isn’t allowed to watch television except for pre-approved documentaries. He eats a vegan diet. He writes letters. He is an inventor of wondrously practical absurdities that are indicative of his grasp of reason. He says what he thinks and doesn’t hold much in reserve. Oskar is a child who loses his father in the September 11th tragedy of the World Trade Center in 2001. Dear Stephen Hawking, Can I please by your protégé? Thanks Oskar Schell (p.11) 1 Client Last Name Oskar Shell is an extremely intelligent, precocious, and wise child. From his vantage point, he resides in the eye of a storm that he wants desperately to control. His thoughts are sometimes random, often metaphoric, and always somehow logical. He wants to affect the world. He writes letters to famous scientists and artists in order to offer his services as an assistant. A multitude of letters go to the physicist Stephen Hawking, who by the end of the story acknowledges Oskar and expresses his joy in the letters that he has received. Among the interesting aspects of his character and of his life, the key that he finds in a blue vase he has broken sets him on a journey in search of a way to hold onto his father. There is a strong influence from the work of the latter Beatles throughout the book. His father would whistle I am the Walrus - Eleanor Rigby is referred when the topic of lonely people is addressed - and the way the writing waxes poetic and takes seemingly random streams of writing that don’t connect until the end - all suggest the work of the Beatles. There is an overtone of the psychedelic, as if Oskar is in a constant state of riding a hallucinogenic, although he is stone sober and keenly aware throughout the story. In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down. (p.38) In this way, Oskar gives his view of what is important in life. Sorrow is important. Moreover, the need to be connected to each other within that sorrow is vital. In his way 2 Client Last Name of inventing, Oskar lets the reader know that he is very aware of the connections between grief and isolation. His invention symbolizes a commonality that should be shared, but is not. Oskar invents by his emotions, even though his inventions are based on his logic. “I also designed a set of wedding rings, where each one takes the pulse of the person wearing it and sends a signal to the other ring to flash red with each heartbeat.” (p. 148) He understands the importance of love and that it has a life. He resents his mother’s friendship with another man. He recognizes that to move on is to let go of his father. He isn’t ready to do that. Dear Oskar, Hello lad! Thanks for your glorious letter And the bullet proof drumsticks, which I hope I’ll never have to use! I have to confess, I’ve never thought too much about giving lessons. . . I hope you like the enclosed t-shirt, which I took the liberty of signing for you. Your mate, Ringo (p. 40) In an apparent randomness, this letter appears. Oskar has received a letter from, one can assume, Ringo Starr of the Beatles. The bullet proof drumsticks are a sign of his search for safety, not only for himself, but for those he feels are attached to danger. An assumption can be made that he offered up the idea to Ringo in reference to the death of John Lennon who was shot. It is this search for security and safety that drives Oskar. He seeks to bring his father back to himself, but he is driven by a need to quell the feeling of mortality that hangs over his head. Most little boys can feel safe that they will wake in 3 Client Last Name their beds to a new day tomorrow, but Oskar has been taught a lesson that the world can turn on a dime. When Oskar begins the search for the lock that will be opened by a key, he is under the assumption that the key was left for him by his father and holds a personal importance between them. This journey is reminiscent for him of the Reconnaissance Expeditions that he had shared with his father who would leave clues for him to discover and explore his world. His father would design the game around things or people, seeking to teach Oskar about interacting with the world and its history. This carries the theme of connection across the barrier between before his father’s death and after his father’s death. There are other ways in which Oskar tries to connect to his world. He makes a bracelet for his mother of the last message that his father sends to them. Oskar, in an act of extreme bravery, has hidden the phone that contains the last messages of his father. “I know I could never let Mom hear the messages, because protecting her is one of my most important raisons d’etre. (p. 86) He protects her to the extent that he hides the phone and goes to Radio Shack to purchase an identical replacement so she won’t guess that the messages exist. These ’lies’ that Oskar must tell to his mother create a barrier between them through which he must find a way to navigate. “Every time I left our apartment to go searching for the lock, I became a little lighter because I was getting closer to Dad. But I also became a little heavier because I was getting farther from Mom.” (p. 52) In grief, Oskar must become something more in order to re-establish his 4 Client Last Name identity. Sorrow is not a shared place, but a place of empty spaces between people. In his search for the lock that will fit the key, Oskar searches out everyone with the last name of Black. The irony of the name ’Black’ is that it is the color of mourning. His quest would have him traveling to places that were not familiar, and therefore dangerous to him as a young boy. He says, “I shook my tambourine the whole time because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me. (p.88) This can be indicative of his search for reaffirming his identity. The way in which his father has died has shook his sense of the world. He has lost faith in the promise of tomorrow and is fearful of the safety of the public world. One of his encounters with a personage of the Black name is with a woman named Ada Black. Her character is defined by wealth and privilege which Oskar challenges on the basis that there are a great deal of poor in the world. Her statement will define the difference between the possibility of the young, and the knowledge of those with more age. “I know what I am” I nodded my head even though I didn’t know what she was talking about or what it had to do with anything. “Even if I don’t like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don’t know what they are. So tell me, which is worse.” “What are the options again?” She cracked up and said, “I like you.” (p. 151) As Oskar progresses through his journey, he will seek his definition. He will look for the answer of how to process grief, of how to know who he is in the world, and of how to connect to those he loves. He meets Mr. Black, his upstairs neighbor and finds a friend in him. His neighbor 5 Client Last Name cannot hear without turning his hearing aides on, which he has not done in years. He has isolated himself with his memories and lives in the past. Without sound, the present does not inflict its loneliness upon him. Oskar asks him if he can help him by turning on his aides. As he does, “Then, out of nowhere, a flock of birds flew by the window, extremely fast and incredibly close.” (p.165) The world will announce itself if one opens themselves to that possibility. Mr. Black begins to accompany him on his journey to search for the Black that is connected to the key. In his grief, Oskar will express himself in many ways. The writer of the book puts in a freeform poem to describe the relationship between Oskar and his mother. I GUESS I FELL ASLEEP ON THE FLOOR WHEN I WOKEUP, MOM WAS PULLIN MY SHIRT OFF TO HELP ME GET INTO MY PJS, WHICH MEANS SHE MUST HAVE SEEN ALL OF MY BRUIESES, I COUNTED THEM LAST NIGHT IN THE MIRROR AND THERE WERE FORTY ONE. SOME OF THE HAVE GOTTEN BIG, BUT MOST OF THEM ARE SMALL. I DON’T PUT THEM THERE FOR HERE, BUT STILL I WANT HER TO ASK ME HOW I GOT THEM (EVEN THOUGH SHE PROBABLY KNOWS), AND TO FEEL SORRY FOR ME (BECAUSE SHE SHOULD REALIZE HOW HARD THINGS ARE FOR ME), AND TO FEEL TERRIBLE (BECAUSE AT LEAST SOME OF IT IS HER FAULT, AND TO PROMISE ME THAT SHE WON’T DIE AND LEAVE ME ALONE. BUT SHE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING. I COULDN’T EVER SEE THE LOOK IN HER EYES WHEN SHE SAW THE BRUISES, BECAUSE MY SHIRT WAS OVER MY HEAD, COVERING MY FACE LIKE A POCKET OR A SKULL. (P 172-173) 6 Client Last Name In the darkness of their grief, they don’t know how to talk to one another. He tries to tell her he is hurt by the act of hurting himself. She is his mother and should see that he is hurting and should make it all go away for him. She should know to tell him that she won’t ever leave him - but she too is wondering whether tomorrow will come again or if the towers will fall on her as well. The grief is a topic that cannot be discussed. To say out loud that you are hurting is to impose that pain on another, but that other person may be the only other person who understands that pain. It is a paradox of communication that the emotions that need to be expressed most are the emotions that can’t be well articulated. Oskar processed his grief symbolically in the search for the lock. As he struggled to find his goal, the struggle began to wear on him. “That gave me heavy boots, because it reminded me of the lock that I still hadn’t found and how until I found it, I didn’t love Dad enough.” (p. 251) When he meets Ruth Black he finds a consequence of holding on to grief for too long. She spent her married life going up on the Empire State building to wait for a flashlight signal from her husband that he was ready to go home. When he died, she would never leave the top of the building again. She couldn’t move forward. “She let out a laugh, and then put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.” (p. 254) However, he is then able to express his frustration and what he perceives as a plague to him. “I need to know how he died.” he says “so I can stop inventing how he died. I’m always inventing.” (p. 256) Oskar seeks closure, but he doesn’t know how to find it. 7 Client Last Name Oskar discovers that his mother had known his journey all along. He finds that the key is not a symbol of his grief, but of another’s grief for a different father. Oskar has discovered that the vase was not a vessel for his father to reach back to him, but had been a gift for his mother. As in the lesson of death, life is never what one expects. As well, grief does not truly have closure - it only has change. The memory fades, but the changes remain. Oskar says of the key in a conversation with his mother, “Luckily for me it let me stay close to him for a little while longer.” “But you won’t always be close to him?” I knew the truth. “No.”(p. 324) Oskar recognizes that the passing of his father is permanent. He sees that his survival will require the memory to fade. As the book ends, Oskar’s journey has led him to the truth. Grief isn’t something that can be resolved. He tells the reader his dream. He dreams that all would reverse itself. His final words are his wish. “We would have been safe.” (p. 326) he says. 8 Client Last Name Works Cited Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. New York: Mariner Books, 2005. . 9 Read More