Noisy and Touchy discussion

Brian Dorsey
Electronic Writing
Prof. Fox
5/14/2011

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Final Essay

At first glance, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close may appear to simply detail the story of a young boy aimlessly searching for a reason that his father was taken from the world. Once the reader digs deeper however, the symbolic nature of Oskar’s journey really comes to fruition. At only nine years of age, Oskar Schnell experienced a tragedy that would be tough for most adults to understand. Without health problems, bad habits, or any forewarning whatsoever, Oskar’s father was gone, and as a result Oskar was mentally battered. As his relationships with friends and family began to sour and he struggled to find the meaning of his own life, Oskar desperately searched for something, or someone, to bring back the spirit of the man he adored so much. Oskar found this, in the form of a key. While finding this key’s home seemed to be the top priority for Oskar, little did he know that this small piece of metal served as a representation of his father, and all of the good times they used to have. Although the physical key began Oskar’s quest, the idea behind the key and the things that it represented proved to be far more beneficial to Oskar in the long run than any lockbox.

To start, Oskar’s quest allowed him to escape from many of the things that were stimulating his depression and building up the vast amount of anger inside of his body. Losing a loved one is hard enough to deal with as it is, and when put in Oskar’s position it is infinitely worse. Before his death, Oskar’s father was a not only a dad, but a best friend to Oskar as well. All of the activities they did together and all of the fun that ensued only made it that much harder for Oskar to live without his father. Instead, Oskar was forced to live with his grandmother in her apartment across the street, while his mom was working hard to support the family. Not even school served as an escape for Oskar, as he was frequently picked on by his classmates at recess, and made fun of for being different than everyone else. However, it was the discovery of the key that helped Oskar pull himself out of this downward spiral, and put meaning back into his life once again. Oskar even said in reference to his time spent at home, “the week was extremely boring, except for when I remembered the key. (p.213)” The idea of a quest across New York City was exactly what Oskar needed to occupy his time, and the longer he searched, the less time he would be spending in his room thinking about what happened to his best friend, his dad.

Furthermore, the key itself serves as a representation of Oskar’s late father. In the years prior to the tragedy, Oskar and his dad would create and solve mysteries of all kinds, with each mystery being more elaborate and more difficult to solve than the one before. The search for this little, one-inch, key’s hole was Oskar’s final puzzle, a final activity with his father, only this time his dad was there in spirit. Oskar wanted nothing more than to solve the mystery, open the lock, and make his father proud. As he visited person after person and traveled through borough after borough, the key around Oskar’s neck began to rekindle the connection between father and son. More important than the contents of any safe, storage room, or apartment the key could possibly fit into, was the idea that Oskar’s father was living through his son’s quest. Although he had been physically taken from his son’s life forever, Oskar’s dad was able to live through his son once again as he embarked on a quest to solve the ultimate mystery.

Lastly, the fact that the key itself did not belong to Oskar’s father allowed Oskar and his family to experience their strongest sense of closure since that fateful afternoon in September. As Oskar traveled across New York meeting new people, he was able to build lasting relationships, and make friends with people that he previously would have never even thought to speak to. Oskar’s most meaningful encounter came in his own building, when he met the 103-year-old “Mr. Black”. Mr. Black accompanied Oskar on may of his journeys across the city, and served as a father figure for a boy who was in dire need of someone, anyone. As Oskar and Mr. Black spent more time together, Oskar became increasingly more comfortable, and was able to let go of some of his deepest fears, one in particular being answering the phone. Listening to the answering machine for the first time in eight months allowed Oskar to finally discover the key’s rightful owner, someone, to his initial dismay, that was not his father. Upon learning exactly who the key belonged to and what it opened, Oskar discovered that his own mother had been orchestrating his entire journey without him knowing. Although Oskar was baffled at first and had no idea what to think, this moment served as the most significant in the entire novel. Oskar was able to rebuild his relationship with his mother, as they told each other all of the secrets they had been hiding. The last thing for Oskar to do was fill his dad’s coffin with the letters he later realized were written by his grandfather, who had lost a son. The closing of the coffin symbolized the closing of a chapter of Oskar’s life. Although he would not ever be able to bring back his father again, Oskar had reached a point in his life where he realized building relationships with his loved ones that were still with him was more important than drowning in guilt and sulking over his father’s death.

In conclusion, the symbolism behind the key proved to be far more important than the physical key itself. Had Oskar simply found a safe with his father’s belongings, he would have never been able to surpass his stage of grieving. Over nearly an entire year, Oskar spent his time searching for an answer that in the back of his mind he never really wanted to find. The end of the quest would mean the end of meeting new people, the end of connecting with his late father, and the end of a search that Oskar enjoyed every second of. Although he may have wanted the search to last forever, the final visit came at the absolute perfect time. A time where both Oskar and his mother were ready to come clean, and a time to add closure to something that had been eating away at the family as a whole for months upon months. Ultimately, the things that Oskar’s simple little piece of metal represented were far more important than the metal itself, as the reader never even finds out what is behind the lock that the key had been separated from for so long. As a result of his journey, Oskar was able to realize that the most important things in his life were his loved ones, evident in one of Oskar’s final quotes in the novel, “In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son (p.338)”.

The post would not let me indent... Also, I have a different version of the book so the page numbers may not match exactly.