Critical Analysis Of Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close stresses the importance of family, and when someone is taken away suddenly, how that can impact one’s views on life and one’s own morality. In addition, the novel emphasizes that people grieve in different ways and at different paces; this is shown through Oskar’s journey and his mother’s friend, Ron. Both characters use those things as ways to deal with the death of Thomas Schell, and both move at different paces. The book also looks into how deception can be an aspect of how people treat others who are grieving; both Oskar and his mother hide things from each other because they both believe it will help the other grieve more easily. Had the two characters not done this, they may not have coped with the death of Thomas the same way. The deception from the two characters when relating to the death of a family member shows how connected the themes of family, morality, and deception are in the novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

The main occurrence in the novel was the nonsensical bombing of the culturally enriched and beautiful city in Dresden, Germany. On February 13, 1945 amidst World War II this city was attack

In this novel as a soldier in World War II,the author Kurt Vonnegut experienced the bombing of Dresden, Germany, in 1945, while being held in that city as a POW. This one experience seemed to affect Vonnegut significantly during his entire life, as he would return to this topic, writing about it on more than one occasion. His most direct account of this event appears in an undated essay entitled “Wailing Shall Be in All Streets,” in which he vividly describes the physical and psychological destruction he encountered, estimating at the time that more than 130,000 people died in the attack. He also explains how he and the other prisoners were ordered to search for victims in the shattered buildings, extract the bodies, and incinerate the remains. This operation ran smoothly until they began to uncover entire rooms filled with people who seemed not to know what hit them. In an interview just months before his death, Vonnegut compared these victims to people sitting on a tram or a train car. At that point, they had to abort the systematic and humane procedure of removing individual bodies and burning them, using flame-throwers instead in a mass clean-up of the bodies that had begun to liquify. But he also talked about the victims of all ages, covered in rubble up to their shoulders, who appeared to be trying to claw their way out of their shelters as they were dying.

A particular question that is seldom pondered over and yet is capable of carrying so many doubts within it: who are we? Who are we as a society who can do the things we do? Who are we who can suffer from them? Award winning poet and essayist Susan Griffin confronts these distinct questions in her work titled, “Our Secret”. Griffin believes that a basic understanding of the things that play a part in the growth of an individual is essential to understanding who we are. The way a child is raised dictates how that child is going to become later on in life. One of the distinct highlights of Griffin’s essay was her use of describing the progress of the V1 rockets in World War II. Griffin studies the aspects of human nature by using these missile developments as a metaphor to symbolize the raising of children and the factors that can influence a growing individual. One of the prime figures that Griffin uses pertaining to these growing individuals was Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Nazi secret police. Griffin uses Himmler as an example to demonstrate how big of a role a parental figure can play in the development of a person.

The design of this novel was structured from Kurt Vonnegut’s own World War II experiences. The one experience that seemed to stand out the most in the novel was the Dresden air raids. Vonnegut saw the air raids as senseless, so every time Vonnegut is describing the raids in the novel we see a distinct pattern, Vonnegut uses his novel to depict to the reader a feel of senselessness every time the bombing is mentioned. As a witness to the destruction, Billy confronts fundamental questions about the meanings of life and death. Traumatized by the events in Dresden, Billy is still left lost with no answers. Although his life as a working family man is considerably satisfying, he is unable to find peace of mind because of the trauma he suffered in Dresden. (Vonnegut,

When British and American forces raided the city with firebombs, Vonnegut and his fellow captives were saved due to their underground imprisonment. The bombing killed more than 135,000 people, most of whom were innocent civilians, more than the deaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. After the bombing, Vonnegut was given the morbid task of carrying the corpses from Air-Raid shelters, including women, children, and the elderly; dead from concussions, fire, or suffocation. In a letter to his father, Vonnegut described his job and the reaction of the locals, “Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge pyres in the city,” (Boomhower). His distressing internment in Dresden not only furthered his anti-war sentiments, but also established a reoccurring theme in his books: the irrationality of government and the senselessness of war. Vonnegut saw the bombing of Dresden and the slaughter of innocents as wasteful and meaningless. He could not comprehend the purpose of destroying a “beautiful” and fully functional civilization (Wiswell 5). The annihilation of the city and lives of the innocent affirmed his views of war as a waste, and even lead to his feeling that, “civilization ended in World War I” (Vitale). This view indicated Vonnegut believed World War II was a meaningless act committed by the uncivilized.

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.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is, on the surface, about the ways in which a family copes with grief, and the ways in which a young boy, Oskar Schell, copes with the loss of his father in the aftermath of 9/11. However, at the root of the novel, the author is expressing a sentiment about the very human difficulty of expressing deep, internalized emotions. In the wake of great emotional pain, people are prone to retreat within themselves, internalize their emotions, and lose their ability to express and share their feelings with those around them. In short, they miscommunicate. Both Oskar Schell and Thomas Schell (two of the book’s main narrators) have experienced tremendous pain and loss, and they both follow this pattern of being hurt

By comparing the aftermath of Dresden bombing to a mission on the moon, Vonnegut showcases the difficulty to survive post the destruction of the city. Similar to an expedition crossing the moon, people had to be conscious about every action of their during war time not knowing which action of theirs would result in massive

The gruesome nature of the attack festered within Vonnegut’s mind. His experience in the war and in Dresden are detailed in Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of the novel, mirrors Vonnegut. Both Billy and Vonnegut were captured in the Battle of the Bulge and transported to Dresden, both witnessing its destruction. The similarities between the two allow Vonnegut to accurately describe settings and events based off of his own experiences. Vonnegut describes the destruction of Dresden, comparing the surface to that of the moon:

Billy Pilgrim, and hundreds of other American POWs arrive in one of the most beautiful architecturally advanced cities in all of Europe approximately thirty days before it becomes one with the ground. Prior to its relentless bombing, Dresden Germany looked like a fairytale. Kurt Vonnegut says himself that that city looked like “Oz”, Billy says “It looked like a sunday school picture of Heaven”. Intricately designed cathedrals, hospitals, capital buildings and centuries of historic construction reached high into the cityscape looking over the innocent citizens. Billy and the Americans are told by the Englishman that “You needn’t worry about bombs, by the way. Dresden is an open city. It is undefended, and contains no war industries or troop concentrations of any importance”. This one line becomes irony in the worst way.

The novel German Boy by Wolfgang Samuel is about his life as a boy from Germany. The book takes place during World War II. Wolfgang goes through this tragic time era with his mother and his sister Ingrid. He is not able to live a normal life of a child such as other children in the world. The characters, settings, and themes make this novel the success it is today because it helps the reader to know what it was like to live during WWII. Wolfgang’s development and experiences further the reader's interest. Going to Berlin and Strasburg from Wolfgang’s hometown Sagan added to the struggles that he faced with moving from place to place to seek safety. Family will always be there to help and no one is safe from war is what Wolfgang learns with his experiences living in this time period.

For one to truly understand Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, I believe it is cruel to know the history of the firebombing of Dresden. The firebombing of Dresden was a disruptive bombing lead by the American and British air bombers. It is said to be that Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany (Kirsch 4). The Free State of Saxony is landlocked federal states of Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic (Kirsch 4). The firebombing of Dresden was

A common goal in life for young people is to grow up, get married, and dream of a future with hope. For Paul Baumer a young protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front his future is doubtful. “Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing anymore. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear” (Remarque 295). Baumer reveals that, the war strips him of everything he cherishes such as his family, friends, and the hope of a future.

The novel describes his family life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his rebellious teenage years in the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. The novel informs the reader of Oskar Schindler’s relationship with his