“I remember they were interviewing the father of a missing girl. I remember his eyebrows. I remember his sadly cleanly shaven face.” (224) 

There is a very distinct level of sorrow to this quote. The phrase “sadly cleanly shaven face” brings up an image of a man with many worries in his life, wasting his time shaving. He has so many things on his mind and tasks to accomplish but he knows that there’s only so much that he can do. He puts time aside to shave his face. The sad image of a man with no more options left attempting to rebuild himself step by step, starting with his daily routine of shaving.

This image conjures up the theme of coping mechanisms. The book that we’ve been reading in class, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer, involves different themes and traumas and illustrates how these traumas have affected the characters. One challenge that remains consistent among the different characters is the attempt to cope with the trauma of loosing a loved one. The way that people cope with death is arguably the driving theme of the entire novel. Whether it be coping through silence or by desperately trying to search for closure on a journey that has no finish line. Two of the characters attempting to cope with tragedy, Oskar and Thomas Schell Sr, resonated most strongly with me. Oskar’s father died on 9/11 as the towers came down. Thomas Schell Sr. lost his beloved partner and his first unborn child during the firebombings in Dresden.

Oskar attempts to cope with his father’s death by desperately seeking some sort of closure. In a way, he refuses to accept the fact that his father’s life is over. He feels that somehow his journey will allow him to stay close to his father just a little bit longer. He hopes to continue his bond with his father through this journey, and find out something to make sense of it all.

Thomas Schell Sr. lost his partner, Anna, and unborn child during the devastating firebombings in Dresden. Before their death, Thomas was a talkative man with many thoughts to share. After the death he slowly began to lose the ability to speak; he lost himself and was engulfed by the grief. His coping mechanism was defeat, he became the shell of a man and removed himself from the world emotionally. He was defeated by the grief and could no longer speak; all he felt was loss and misery. His coping mechanism was to remove himself from the world that took everything that mattered.

Hearing about loss on this scale always induces introspection into my own life. It makes me question why I can’t be at maximum happiness when everyone that is important to me is still alive, why can’t I be as happy as Thomas would’ve been if Anna came back to him? Or if Oskar had found out that his dad was late for his meeting in the World Trade Centre and was still able to come home? It puts into perspective how emotions are truly spectrum based. You can’t experience intense happiness until you’ve experienced crushing sadness. You can’t truly appreciate something special until you’ve lost something special. This book takes place primarily in the coping period of grief. It touches on the prospect of growth and newfound happiness when the therapist asks Oskar, “Do you think any good can come from your father’s death?” (203). Grief and the loss of a loved one can be defeating and suffocatingly depressing. Pain and suffering is an important experience to have, and how you deal with these emotions is also deeply important.

Thanks for reading,

Isaiah

References

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Boston, MA: Mariner, 2005. Print.