Extremely Loud Incredibly Close free essay sample

Oskar Schell, who is the main character in â€Å"Extremely Loud Incredibly Close†, is a 9-year old boy. He has a very good imagination and is very creative. He talks about himself as an atheist, a scientist, a pacifist and an adventurer. He is also a very determined and strong-willed boy. First we get an impression of a happy and joyful kid, but after his father dies in the attack on the World Trade Center, he becomes very unhappy and almost depressed. The funny thing about Oskar is, that his inner thoughts and his struggle with life almost seem like if he was an adult. Oskar is also humoristic and witty. I think Foer choose Oskar, because we as an audience really feel sympathy for him. He is a little kid, and hasn’t learnt to deal with some things in life such as loss. Because of this he is very believable. We understand that he doesn’t know how to handle the situation with his father’s death. Oskar’s way of handling the father’s death, is to figure out a way to get closer to him. He discovers a mysterious key in his father’s closet. The key lays in an envelope with the name â€Å"Black† on it. Oskar is sure that his father had been planning an expedition for Oskar, and now he wants to figure out where the key fits. He chooses to visit every person that lives in New York with the last name â€Å"Black†, and ask him or her if they know anything about his dad. This shows how determined Oskar really is. Another character that appears in the film is Oskar’s mother. In the start of the story, she doesn’t seem like an important character, but in the end we understand how much effort she has put into protecting Oskar. Compared to Oskar she tries to stay strong, to give Oskar a feeling that things would be good again. â€Å"She said, ‘I cry a lot, too, you know. ’ ‘I don’t see you cry a lot. ’ ‘Maybe that’s because I don’t want you to see me cry a lot. ’ ‘Why not? ’ ‘Because that isn’t fair to either of us. ’† So even though Oskar thinks that she is not affected by the father’s death, she is actually just hiding her grief to protect Oskar. She tries to help Oskar, and also herself, get trough the loss of his father and her husband. Oskar’s mother is a very important character in the film, because she indirectly helps Oskar to cope with his problems. From Oskar’s perspective it seems like his mother doesn’t care what he is doing and why he is leaving the apartment every day, because she doesn’t question him or asks him what he’s doing. But later in the film, he figures out that his mother has known all about his adventure, and has contacted every person, that he has been visiting. The only reason why she doesn’t tell Oskar, that she knows what he is doing, is because she knows that Oskar wants to figure out everything on his own, and that it will help him feel closer to his dad. I think Oskar’s visiting all of the different people is a search to get answers about his dad, and trying to get closer to him. He visits a lady named Abby Black. She is very friendly, but has no information about the key or Oskar’s dad. Eight months after Oskar’s visit at Abby Black’s house, he checks the answering machine. Abby Black has left a message on the phone telling Oskar that she wasn’t completely honest with him. She says that Oskar should visit William Black, her ex-husband, and that he can help Oskar. It turns out that the key belongs to William Black, and that it has nothing to do with Oskar’s father. So in the end you can say that the whole search Oskar has been going through wasn’t about finding something about his father but was about finding him self. Sometimes life isn’t about having an answer to every question. The film â€Å"Extremely Loud Incredibly Close† deals with the trauma of 9/11, in a way that really affects the audience. We follow a little 9-year old boy who lost his father in the attack on the World Trade Center. I think the whole meaning with Oskar’s search is to find a way that he can get a little closer to his father. There are a lot of people like Oskar who are suffering from the losses they’ve had after 9/11. In the film we meet Oskar’s grandfather, who isn’t talking because of a trauma caused by his loss from World War two. You can connect the personal trauma the grandfather has got from World War two with the trauma Oskar has got from 9/11, because they both have lost someone who was close to them. A lot of victims from World War two and all of the victims from 9/11 were innocent victims, and this makes Oskar’s, the grandfather’s and a lot of people’s grief even worse. In â€Å"Extremely Loud Incredibly Close† you could also discuss the relationship between the mother and Oskar. We get a feeling that Oskar doesn’t like his mother as much as his father. Oskar even says in the film that he wished she had been in the building instead of his father. I think the relationship between Oskar and his mother gets worse after 9/11, because of the fact that Oskar doesn’t think his mother is missing the father as much as he do. Actually the mother is just trying to be strong, and trying to show Oskar that everything will be okay again. â€Å"Songs are as sad as the listener. † – I think this quote means that a song isn’t sad if you aren’t sad. If you’re in a very good mood, and you’re listening to a song with sad lyrics, the song wouldn’t turn out as depressing, as if you were sad. â€Å"The mistakes Ive made are dead to me. But I cant take back the things I never did. † – I think this means that you learn from the mistakes you make, and then you put them behind you. But if there’re things you would have done, but you haven’t, then you can’t go back and do them afterwards. So it’s about making mistakes and learning from them, and about doing the things you want to do, when you have the opportunity to do them.