Writing is an effective way for people to cope with tragedy. In Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, three characters, Oskar Schell, his grandmother, and his grandfather are each experiencing grief and are trying to cope with their personal tragedies. Written after the events of September 11th, readers of this novel are exposed to a melancholic yet intricate story about dealing with any sort of tragedy. The first main character in the novel is Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old genius. The plot of his storyline is about his journey to find out the purpose of a key he finds that belonged to his father. A trademark of Oskar’s writing is that his ideas seem to be sporadic and all over the place. For example, he comes
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For one, Oskar’s proneness to say what he is thinking contradicts his grandmother’s writing style. In fact, the grandmother keeps a lot of things about her past life a secret from Oskar and avoids talking about the past with Oskar’s grandfather. Oskar himself even wonders why he knew other people much better than his own grandmother, who he “spent more time with…since Dad died” (Foer 105). Privacy is the grandmother’s defense mechanism. Something that sets the grandfather apart from the other two characters is his use of commas and his lack of paragraphs. Oskar’s writing, even though it jumps from idea to idea, does include paragraphs as well as correct punctuation. Readers could expect this from him, since he describes the activity of looking for errors in the New York Times with his father as something he was fond of. The grandmother also had paragraphs, although she had the quirk of adding extra spaces at the end of her sentences. A difference between the grandparents is the fact that the grandmother writes in a straightforward, uncomplicated way, whereas the grandfather includes more poetic lines in his letters. The grandmother’s sentences address her emotions and what she is speaking about, which is different from the grandfather’s writing, where he contemplates his speech barrier and reflects about his troubled past as well as his mistakes. In conclusion, the three characters have differentiating but sometimes similar writing styles that give each person their own
For one, Oskar’s proneness to say what he is thinking contradicts his grandmother’s writing style. In fact, the grandmother keeps a lot of things about her past life a secret from Oskar and avoids talking about the past with Oskar’s grandfather. Oskar himself even wonders why he knew other people much better than his own grandmother, who he “spent more time with…since Dad died” (Foer 105). Privacy is the grandmother’s defense mechanism. Something that sets the grandfather apart from the other two characters is his use of commas and his lack of paragraphs. Oskar’s writing, even though it jumps from idea to idea, does include paragraphs as well as correct punctuation. Readers could expect this from him, since he describes the activity of looking for errors in the New York Times with his father as something he was fond of. The grandmother also had paragraphs, although she had the quirk of adding extra spaces at the end of her sentences. A difference between the grandparents is the fact that the grandmother writes in a straightforward, uncomplicated way, whereas the grandfather includes more poetic lines in his letters. The grandmother’s sentences address her emotions and what she is speaking about, which is different from the grandfather’s writing, where he contemplates his speech barrier and reflects about his troubled past as well as his mistakes. In conclusion, the three characters have differentiating but sometimes similar writing styles that give each person their own