Thursday, April 26, 2012

Language Failures


None of the characters in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close are able to express themselves fully through the medium of language. Where language fails, Foer represents these moments through pictures, spaces, numbers, and overlapping letters. Every character has a moment in the text where these other formal arrangements take precedence over language. When Oskar is unable to understand why his father had to die in the ending of the novel, he creates a flip book so that the flying man flies backwards back up into the falling building. When the grandfather is feeling anxious because he doesn’t have enough space or time to say all he has to say and explain all there is to explain, the text starts to get closer and closer and eventually overlaps so that the text cannot even be read. When the grandmother locks herself away in the spare bedroom to write her life story, she only hits the space bar. Her life is spaces and language cannot express her life story the way that a collection of spaces does.
These moments are pivotal in understanding the emotions and motivations of these three narrators. It is interesting that this novel, an example of the power of the book, goes outside of language to drive home certain points and make very clear the emotions and motivations of these characters. This may be an example of where popular literature is headed. This may also be a reflection of how, in today’s world, people are relying less and less on language to communicate with one another. Letters, as a form of communication, are dying out. This is reflected in the novel in the way that all of the letters Thomas wrote to his son were not delivered and served to take his place in the casket. The recently increasing disregard for literature may be discussed by Foer in the context that when dealing with a nationwide tragedy, literature is unable to full describe the effects or soothe the sadness in those who were affected. I am still confused though as to what the failures of language are suggesting to readers is the proper way of dealing with tragedy. 

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