Sunday, April 22, 2012

Mothers and Sons


          In Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, there are several instances of a tempestuous mother and son relationship.  Starting with the beginning of the novel, it is apparent that nine-year-old Oskar has a much more formed and loving relationship with his father than with his mother.  They play games together and stimulate each other’s thinking, with his father answering Oskar’s questions about the meaning of life and why people exist.  However, when tragedy strikes and his father is killed in the 9/11 attacks, Oskar’s tense relationship with his mother is visible to the reader. 
          It is apparent throughout the novel that the two of them love each other very much.  Oskar hides the phone with his father’s messages on it from her to protect her from the inevitable grief it will cause her, and she keeps him safe the best she can.  It almost seems, though, that Oskar is the parent in the relationship.  He looks out to protect his mother, and tries to make sure she’s happy before he is.  But he doesn’t really know how to tell her about his true love towards her.  For example, in the limousine on the way to his father’s funeral, he notices something about how his mother looks: “Even though it was an incredibly sad day, she looked so, so beautiful.  I kept trying to figure out a way to tell her that, but all of the ways I thought of were weird and wrong…I love making jewelry for her, because it makes her happy, and making her happy is another one of my raisons d’etre” (7). 
          As the novel progresses, the relationship seems to drift further and further apart.  His mother doesn’t ask him where he’s been when he comes home at 4:00 in the morning from his adventures looking for the lock, and she doesn’t worry when he leaves without telling her anything.  Oskar is clearly distraught by this, and in a very emotional and wrenching moment, Oskar finally unloads all of his grief about his father’s death and yells that he wishes she had died in the attacks instead of his father.  He immediately apologizes and takes it back, but their interaction from then on is strained.
          I found this relationship to be interesting because usually when the parent of a young child dies, usually the other parent’s relationship with the child becomes stronger.  The opposite happens in this novel, which I believe examines another realistic side to a tragic situation that so many had to go through in 2001.

1 comment:

  1. you've already begun to link this dynamic to 9/11 - can you specify here what Foer's argument is regarding the response to 9/11?

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