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.
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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