Mr Black And Oskar's Death

Mr.Black as a helper in Oskar’s journey of coping with sadness

Mr.Black helps Oskar to cope with sadness by helping Oskar to accept his dad’s death, providing mental company to Oskar and suggesting Oskar open his heart and share his grief with other people.

Mr.Black eases Oskar’s grief of losing his dad by reducing the significance of the death and encouraging Oskar to move on. Oskar's dad's death has a great significance to Oskar as he thinks his dad is a “Great Man” (159) and his dad “deserves to be famous like a movie star” (160), therefore his thinks dad should not be dead. Nevertheless, Mr.Black tells Oskar that although his dad’s name is not in the biographical index that gives importance to a person, it is a good thing to be an ordinary people because “nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war(P159).” Mr.Black explains that the people that are significant are not necessarily good people, but most of them are evil, such as …show more content…
Within the story that Mr.Black tells Oskar about the straight arms that the Russian artists had, which can be perceived as the trauma that people receive, the artists fed each other so they can survive (164). Through the story, Mr.Black implies the idea that Oskar should do the same thing as the artists to overcome the hardship of dealing with trauma, which is open his heart: “In hell we starve! In heaven we feed each other (164)!” If Oskar keeps everything inside himself, he would be in “hell” because the accumulation of the grief would eventually collapse him like how the artists would starve to death, if Oskar gives out a hand like the artists did which in terms of Oskar is to share his grief with other people, however, he would be in “heaven” because he could suffer less as people surrounded/surrounding him would start to understand him and give him