“The past Traps me within myself”
Have you ever thought that you would never forget something? It is this idea that represents one of the major themes in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the book, the main characters Oskar Schell and his grandfather are both trapped in events that changed their lives forever. Oskar could not forget the loss of his father on the ‘9/11’ accident, and Thomas Schell, the grandfather, was trapped on the day he lost his love, Anna. Oskar and his grandfather keep trying to revive their pasts and do not accept their present. Examples of this fact are shown by the way Oskar’s grandfather acted with her grandmother and by pretty much all of Oskar’s actions throughout the book. “It always had to be from behind. Like that first time. And I knew he wasn’t thinking of me.” (Safran Froer J. Extremely Loud and Incredibly close; p 177). By observing the descriptions that are made by Oskar’s grandmother about the way she had sex with Oskar’s grandfather we can see that he stills thinks about his past. He did not want anything that was not Anna and tried to avoid thinking that he was not with her. As we can see in the quotation, even when he was having sex with his wife he wanted to believe that it was Anna. During the story, Oskar does everything thinking about his father. All of his actions have the objective of finding out more about his father’s death and ‘secrets’. This shows us that the boy was not living in the present anymore, he just wanted to be ‘with’ his father or in the moment he lost him. Oskar did not do anything thinking about the present, and clearly demonstrated that he did not want anything that was not related to his father. He did not anything that was not related to the past. Oskar and his grandfather cannot stop thinking about their pasts. Both of them just do everything thinking about what happened and cannot see what is happening around them.
At that same time that Oskar and his grandfather try to avoid the present, they also try to impede the world from changing. Both the boy and the man are extremely resistant to changes, and anything that starts to modify what they know, is received with total anger or reluctance. Examples of this fact are shown by the treatment and expectations of Oskar and his grandfather to their ‘ghosts’. In the story, there are ghosts that guide the main characters’ actions and objectives. In the case of Oskar, his ghosts are his father and his mother, and for grandfather it is Anna. Both of them react in different ways, however, it is very clear that none of them appreciate any change. After seeing his mother with Ron, Oskar became extremely angry and thought that his mom did not care about his father anymore. And, grandfather went back to Germany when Oskar’s grandmother was pregnant. It is possible to see that, when there was a possibility of a change, Oskar and his grandfather did their maximum to avoid it. All of the changes had some relation with the forgetfulness of their ghosts, so to avoid it they got angry or just escaped to another place. Both Oskar and his grandfather did not want their pasts to be forgotten and avoided everything that would make they think of something else.
Another way in which the theme of being trapped by the past is shown is with the use of a series of motifs. Motifs are symbols that are constantly repeated throughout the story and that can be used as tools to better interpretations. Observing the motifs of the story we can see that Oskar and his grandfather are locked in their pasts and isolated from their future. Examples of this fact can be the key and the way Oskar’s grandfather behaves. The search for the lock to Oskar’s key is one of the major happenings in the story. However, if we think more deeply it is possible to see that the key represents Oskar’s future. If his father had not died, the boy would not have found the key and, so he would not have started his search for the lock. By observing this and how Oskar thinks about the key we can see that it represent his memories and his father. Oskar is imprisoned by his memories and past, and the impossibility to find the lock for it his key, symbolize the fact that he will never be completely free of his past. For Oskar’s grandfather the situation is not too different. In his case, the fact that he stopped talking and always asked for the time also demonstrates his entrapment in the past. Nowadays, the greatest things that guide our world are the time and the ability to communicate. After losing his love, Oskar’s grandfather could not communicate anymore, and lost sense of the time. In other words, he became isolated from the rest of the world. Similarly to what happened to Oskar, his memories and have locked him up from the present and future and now he can just live in the past. Oskar and his grandfather are trapped in their pasts after the loss of their loves. Both of them keep trying to revive their pasts and are resistant to any changes that may occur. The use of motifs also vouches this fact and we see that their pasts are like prison cells that impede them from living with the rest of the world. The loss of their loves made Oskar and his grandfather trapped within their own minds and memories, and now they just live in their own worlds with almost no connections to the outside.
