The Grandmother Rhetorical Analysis

Oskar’s Grandmothers perspective is told in letter to Oskar titled “My Feelings.” Her form of speech is easily identifiable by her unique way of speaking. Firstly, she completely ignores quotation marks. Her love of American jargon, puns, and phrases as the readers hears about throughout the novel is apparent in her writing as well. The Grandma’s chapters include unusually large spaces between sentences and thoughts. These gaps affect the flow of the reading, and force the reader to pause while reading in the same way the Grandma obviously did as she wrote. These breaks and hesitations between sentences go so far to act as a visual testament to her apprehension, as well as the almost breathy quality of her speech. The way the Grandmother writes …show more content…
The moments in which she is able to push past her insecurities about herself, her tone becomes wonderfully explanative and cathartic. Oskars Grandma was unable to write out her life story for either the Grandpa or herself. However, when the Grandpa tries to leave her for a second time, this time she follows him to the airport, where they choose to remain together. The reader knows the Grandma did not tell her sister that she loved her the night before Anna died, so the reader can infer that the grandmas letters are her attempts to ensure that Oskar knows she loves him, even if she has left him. In the Grandma’s final chapter, she recounts a dream in which all of the horrible events she witnessed during her life reverse, “All of the collapsed ceilings re-formed above us. The fire went back into the bomb, which rose up and into the bellies of planes whose propellers turned backward, like the second hands of the clocks across Dresden, only faster” (428). After Grandma’s dream, Oskar’s final chapter parallels the Grandmothers. Oskar takes out his ‘Stuff That Happened To Me’, removes the photos of the falling man, and reverses the entire