Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close Personal Quotes

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.

“He’d do what he always did, find the sweet among the bitter” (265). In the book the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, the Panama Hotel is on the corner of Chinatown and Japantown. The hotel is located between the two cultures Henry is tied to, the Japanese and the Chinese. The story takes place in Henry’s past when he first meets Keiko and the present, after his wife, Ethel, has died. The hotel acts as the connection in between the two cultures and the two time periods, and symbolizes how Henry does too.

The prominence of a few themes - amputation, fate and death - create the catharsis required in a tragedy, mainly incidents which “arousing] pity and fear,” (definition). The repetition of these eerie and morbid themes keep them at the forefront of a reader’s mind, and put them in an uneasy emotional state, leading to a sense of catharsis at the end of the long, marathon novel. One main motif through the novel is that of amputation, and armlessness, which come to symbolize loss, helplessness, and the way in which sometimes one’s hands are bound, at the will of something greater. For example, after Owen accidentally kills John’s mother, he borrows John’s stuffed armadillo, a prized playing toy, and returns it without its claws, rendering it “USELESS TO JohN QUOTE,” which Owen means to signify “QUOTE ABOUT IM AM GODS MESSENGER.” This theme is touched upon many more times, and becomes somewhat of an obsession for Owen, who repeatedly removes or adds arms to female figures, including John’s deceased mother’s dressmaker’s dummy, a large catholic stature of a saint, which he desecrates. In irony, or perhaps a fate Owen had foreseen, the novel concludes with Owen losing his arms, protecting a group of Vietnamese children, in his last act of heroism. In addition to the theme of amputation, the theme of fate, and predestiny from God, is woven throughout, particularly perpetuated by Owen, who sees himself as God’s instrument. Owen consistently reminds John of the certainty of fate, and is angered when John does not share his blind faith. Owen believed “there were no accidents; there was a reason for that baseball - just as there was a reason for Owen being small, and a reason for his voice. In Owen's opinion, he had INTERRUPTED AN ANGEL, he had DISTURBED AN ANGEL AT WORK, he had UPSET THE SCHEME OF THINGS (page 102).” Is it Owen’s blind

Throughout The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, I sympathized with Keiko and Henry the most. Although both are minority races, they are discriminated against differently. Keiko identifies as 'American', but that does not seem to matter as her family and the rest of the citizens of Japanese descent are whisked into armed, prison-like camps by U.S. officials. I can relate to her since I have been discriminated against because of my ethnicity. It seems easy for some to make stereotypes about other races, especially in a time where everyone is looking for somewhere to place the blame. For example, the discrimination is evident when Keiko and Henry try to buy a record- Keiko is not even acknowledged because she is Japanese.

It is easy to get caught up in one’s own world when life picks up the pace and everything seems hectic; along the way decisions are made unconsciously to let go of people who were once held dear. It is easy to be torn between what appears to be important and what is trivial. Amidst the mess that is life, various things contend for one’s attention, and what really matters might not be so clear. In “The Last Rung on the Ladder” the guilt that consumes the narrator over his sister’s suicide becomes an essential part of his identity even as he tries to adjust to her loss. In “Sanctuary” Jim Hammer is in the very first stages of realizing he is guilty of his friend’s death, and the responsibility has not yet taken its toll on him. The history and experiences of one’s identity affect the way an individual reacts to guilt, if one has never understood the impact that relationships have upon past and present selves then it is difficult to fully digest the impact of his/her actions.

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.

Discuss how the authors, Craig Silvey and Tim Winton, reveal the central character’s process and understanding of trauma and grief.

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

In Tim O’brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, O’brien connects with the reader’s emotion. which allows one to feel the same feelings as the characters in the novel. The Things They Carried, not only pulls on the reader’s emotion by context, but also through rhetorical strategies. O’Brien’s novel discusses the tragedies of the war in a way so differently than most other works of fiction. O’brien employs vivid imagery, strong anaphora, and thought provoking metaphors to develop an emotional connection with the reader, but to also cause the audience to feel the emotions of the characters throughout O’brien’s novel.

You may not have realized it, but in The Things They Carried, there are many sources of symbolism planted throughout the book. The Things they carried by Tim O’Brien is about O'brien's experience in the war; he shares his experience through vignettes. Throughout this essay I will be talking about how Tim O'brien uses symbolism to open descriptions of emotional and physical burdens.

The thought of his father being dead is devastating, “The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering, what a mess I am’’, (Foer 33) he has to live with the fact that his father is gone. When Oskar exits his house, the suffering starts because he lives to find out the mystery. Once upon a time, he was faced with a similar situation. He describes his life, “The meaning of my thoughts started to float away from me, like leaves that fall from a tree into a river, I was the tree, the world was the river.” [ Foer 16], Oskar faces many trials that lead to his emotions.

As Peck hears things happening on the news and are described as being tragic, he believes that the word is becoming more and more generic and used when something quite bad happens whether it is tremendously bad or miniscule. Hearing the news and witnessing September 11th happening, Peck has found himself using the word tragedy to describe the event aimlessly. A tragedy is a genre that consists of suffering and sorrow. It eases mourning and creates memory. A tragedy is not meant to commemorate pain but hopes that pain will accelerate and begin to become facilitated. Peck asks the

Within the novel “The Things They Carried”, the characters carry both physical and emotional burdens. The author, Tim O’Brien, has mentioned numerous times the weight of what the men are carrying. He described the weight of their boots, and the rounds of ammunition they carried. The emotional burdens they carried were their emotions throughout their time in the war. The men felt grief, terror, love, and longing. They longed to be away from the war and back with their families. The men grieved over friends lost in war, and were terrified of being next or getting an injury so bad that they become confined to a wheelchair. Furthermore, the men experience love. One character Jimmy Cross, for example, loves the ‘relationship’ he has with Martha.

Two minor characters in this novel also decide to live depressing lifestyles after losing their loved ones. They are Mr. Black in the apartment above Oskar and Ruth Black in the Empire State building. These two feel they cannot function anymore and hid from the world. Mr. Black has not left his apartment in “twenty-four years” because “there hasn’t been any reason too” now that his wife died (162.) He turned off his hearing aids “a long, long time ago…[to] save batteries” (165.) Oskar finds tree stumps in his bed that contain nails representing each day his wife had been dead. The man is over 100 years old and has been through so much in his life. He explains that for most of it he was at ward and “treated [his wife] as though she didn’t matter.” The bed was “the first thing [he] got her when he came back”(161.) As Mr. Black continues to put nails in it and shut the world out, he is always thinking of his wife. He no longer explores or interacts because she is not there.

Oskar’s grandmother follows him. Almost the entire last ‘My Feelings’ chapter is a purging of emotions. Whether there is a catharsis for the grandparents depends on the ending it creates. On one hand there is a catharsis, because they find a way to live together, at the airport. This closes their story and creates closure for both of them. But on the other hand it might not be a catharsis, because it is not clear if they really have closure. There are still questions and the reader and the grandparents do not know if this is a good solution, so there is not really a proper closed ending.