Compare And Contrast Extremely Loud And Extremely Close

At the beginning of the film, Oskar narrates that he has “always had a hard time doing somethings” (Daldry 2001). Here, Oskar alludes to his many social difficulties when interacting with others, as well as his other mood disorders frequently associated with ASD such as anxiety, hyperactivity, and paranoia (Autism Speaks). Oskar, as a result of the trauma of his father’s death and his disorder, struggles immensely with anxiety and guilt after we learn that he froze in fear on September 11th when the phone rang while he was home alone. When Oskar finally tells his Grandfather about the incident, he emotionally cries, “I wanted to pick up the

Henry being so consciously aware of the reoccurring violence and deaths of many soldiers causes him to constantly reminisce about the war in Vietnam and its horrific events. “PTSD” however, is very common amongst veterans. My father who had fought in the Vietnam War had “PTSD.” And even after many years of prior to the war, his past always seemed to have consumed his reality. The violent images and emotional feelings about the war in Vietnam have caused him to visualize the war in a form of a nightmare whenever he sleeps. This can explain his frequent sleep talks at night about the Vietnam War as he screams “giết tất cả” which translates to kill them all. Of course he had it coming that the cause of his children to become distant towards him was because of his unexplained actions. But nonetheless, it is the result of many pasts that is the responsibility of shaping ones fear and sensation towards life.

The human brain is an extremely delicate and complex organ. Damage to the brain, physically or emotionally, can change one’s life forever. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that is triggered by a terrifying event, being either experienced or witnessed. In the short story, “The Red Convertible,” Louise Erdrich accurately demonstrates the degenerative changes the character Henry goes through after returning home. This is achieved through the descriptions of the change in Henry’s personality, actions, and the use of diction.

Jess Walter creates a post 9/11 world that balances precariously between real and surreal. It is real enough that the reader is able to comprehend how awful the attack truly was; but surreal enough that the reader feels the same way most Americans did at Ground Zero—confused, frightened, and grief stricken. Remy, the unwilling hero in all of this is exposed to many different forms of grief both public and personal. Using irony and satire, Walter critiques the way public forms of grief were presented as the only viable ways of grieving after 9/11. Reporters wanted to broadcast each and every loss. The government wanted to exploit the grief of the American people so that they could continue what they were doing in

When people think of war, there first instinct is to think about the physical pain soldiers have gone through, the physical demand of training before and during. What people miss is the mental trauma that affects soldiers during and after the war. In today’s society it is much more acceptable to speak about mental health issues due to the war and we have established a term for it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We have established many options for soldiers and families who are affected by PTSD. The two books that I am analyzing speak about the idea of mental health or war trauma during World War I and World War II, instead of calling it PTSD the authors call is shell shock, which is close to the definition of PTSD. The two books that I am analyzing is Pat Barker 's Regeneration, which is focused on a mental institution and how soldiers deal with shell shock and many other internal struggles. The second is Elie Wiesel’s book Night, which speaks about a family that is taken to a concentration camp and is dealing with the mental trauma that they experience and how they are forced to change the way they think and feel in order to survive. Both touch upon very similar themes when it comes to trauma and survival during and after the war.

Besides the intuitive black-and-white graphics, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close displays a series of gripping texts that range from profound seriousness to adventurous lightheartedness. The story follows through the footsteps of a nine year old boy named Oscar Schell after his father passed away from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Oscar is left traumatized and is constantly unhappy with himself and others. Through his story, Oscar illustrates how to forgive himself from the feelings of regret, loss, and emotional strain. Furthermore, he provides an explicit example showing that even after a painful heart-rending experience, one can overcome fear and transcend grief.

In “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Foer, Oskar Schell’s mother is one of the many victims who lost a family member in 9/11. Oskar’s mother seek help from her community and “met a group of people that have lost family”(315). One of the them was Ron who quickly became friends with Oskar’s mother. After, they both spend some time with each other to overcome their trauma. From her conversation with Oskar, she admits that she cries a lot, but she is “trying to find ways to be happy”(171). Although the author does not clearly state that Oskar’s mother has overcome her trauma, we can infer that she did overcome her trauma because we can see her solution to be “happy” in other words, her resolve, was to spend time with Ron; as a result, with help of her community which in Oskar’s mother’s case Ron, Oskar’s mother was able to conquer her

For those individuals concerned, as for the nation itself, the injury of 9/11 warrants collective mourning. As Lisa Beamer observes, we were all “reeling, attempting to comprehend the reality of what [we] had seen.” (9) She is herself extolled as an “unpretentious homemaker and mother” through which “an entire nation can…find hope.” (back cover) Her husband, Todd, typifies a “top young sales representative.” (2) Breitweiser declares herself “a 9/11 widow” and almost beatifies her affluent status. Giuliani cites close friends among the attack’s victims. Firefighters depicted in The Guys mirror our own (or would be) acquaintances, wherever we might be ourselves. These stories of victims, of widows and children, many of whom will never know their fathers, distill a shared recognition of grief, anger, bewilderment. Even if characters’ (and these readings comprise a compilation of characters, real and fictive and sometimes both) material or marital positions seem somewhat alien, one overarching reminder and theme is that we are all human. Even George W. Bush, whatever our opinions of him, merits a whiff of compassion—if only for the desperation with which others try to ennoble his position and reaction or even his

Studies have found that post traumatic stress disorder affects almost 31% of Vietnam veterans. War has a catastrophic impact on people’s health and well-being. Soldiers aren’t only affected physically during war. Many are affected mentally as well. For example, during the war and post war many individuals suffer from what is known as shell shock, which was especially prominent throughout World War 1. Post traumatic stress disorder and shell shock are due to the brain’s failed attempts to cope with their trauma. The novel Slaughterhouse 5, the excerpt from The Yellow Birds, and the short story “Soldier’s Home” all describe the lives of soldiers post war. The repercussions of the traumatic experiences that soldiers survive through during war

In Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss gives life to The Four Corners of Civilization through his storytelling. Storytelling gives the author an opportunity to show their experiences and reflect their beliefs within the world they are creating. During the time this book was being written, there was the Iraq and Afghanistan War taking place which had been sending many soldiers back home with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Rothfuss parallels this disorder within his book through the main character, Kvothe, when he experiences trauma and he shows how Kvothe copes with the persisting trauma through grief theory, “four doors of the mind” (135) . His four doors of the mind is similar to the Kubler-Ross Model, which is widely accepted by practitioners, but challenges it by believing the mind copes with pain through the central idea of numbing. However, this mindset of categorizing emotions experienced within grief can be destructive behavior towards any griever rather than helping them cope; stages of post-loss grief do not exist.

September 11, 2001, was an unforgettable day that changed America forever. Thousands of lives were lost in this tragedy, like Oskar’s father. In the beginning of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar mentions the Reconnaissance Expedition he and his father used to play on Sundays. After his dad passed away, Oskar’s determination to complete expeditions remains, but now a different goal arises: to find the lock to the key found in his father’s room that will help Oskar to stop missing his father. Even though Oskar knows his father is dead, this adventure is Oskar’s way of receiving closure and coping with the loss of his father. During his journey of finding the lock, Oskar often gets “heavy boots” which is his metaphor of being burdened with emotions due to everything in his life that weighs him down. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer’s use of the motif “heavy boots” throughout the novel highlights that it is normal to experience grief, but there are various ways to do so.

The effects of stress on a person’s life can be calamitous. It affects every part of a person’s body and makes them feel useless and alone. In essence, some stress every now and then in our lives is good, but an overwhelming amount of stress can be devastating. An example of overwhelming stress is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD. This disorder occurs when someone is exposed to horrific events in their life causing them severe and ongoing emotional damage due to the extreme psychological trauma. In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison describes the brutal effects of slavery. The novel follows the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver, as they try to rebuild their lives after they escaped from slavery. After reading the

Oskar Schell is a nine year old boy who lost his father in 9/11, as a young child with a learning disability he finds it hard to cope with that loss of his father. With the help of the people he meets on his journey to find the box that the key opens. Oskar found a vase with envelope taped to the bottom and the word “Black” written on it a year after his father died. Not knowing what the key opened, it leads to a long adventure to find the lock it opened. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar Schell’s perceived autism, curiosity and over coming his fears change the way he kept his father’s memory alive after his death.

"You just don 't know," she said. "You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don 't know what it 's all about. Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country—the dirt, the death—I just want to eat it and have it there inside me. That 's how I feel. It 's like . . . this appetite. I get scared sometimes—lots of times—but it 's not bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I 'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it 's like I 'm full of electricity and I 'm glowing in the dark—I 'm on fire almost—I 'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn 't matter because I know exactly who I am. You can 't feel like that anywhere else."” (O’ Brien 80-81). Tim O’ Brien shows how being in contact with the war can change a person so pure and innocent to a person who isn’t in connection with themselves and is forever trapped inside their own mind. Also it shows how the people who can’t handle the rough environment of war can have a terrible reaction and loose themselves. He also shows how the war changes you mentally making it hard for you to tell if the is the real you or just a persona you took when you couldn’t handle it anymore and needed to mask your broken soul.

Succeeding the untimely events of 9/11, Jonathan Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, follows the life of Oskar Schell, a young boy experiencing trauma from his father’s calamitous death. The catastrophe, which prompts Oskar to embark on a transformative journey, parallels the accident that left his grandfather, Thomas Schell Sr., mute. These events also adversely affect Oskar, as he exhibits a variation of the fight response by building armour around himself, hiding his true feelings. This internal imbroglio culminates when Oskar sees a photo of an unidentified man falling off of the World Trade Center, invoking the presence