English Oral – Extremely loud & Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
1. Plot (in short)
The protagonist in the book is a nine-year-old boy called Oskar Schell. After his father, Thomas
Schell, died in the attack at the World Trade Center on 9/11, Oskar got depressed, or as he would call
it, ‘he got heavy boots’. Thomas leaves five messages on the family answering machine that Oskar
returns home to hear. The last message is left moments before the tower falls, while Oskar is at home,
but too frightened to pick up the phone. Filled with shame, Oskar buys a new answering machine to
hide the messages from his mother. Oskar is devastated by his father’s death, and wracked with guilt
about replacing the answering machine: “That secret was a hole in the middle of me that every happy
thing fell into” (71).
Sometime after Thomas’ death, Oskar finds a blue vase with an envelope. In the envelope is a key,
with ‘Black’ written on it. Oskar’s dad used to plan treasure hunts throughout the whole city, so Oskar
sees this key as another treasure hunt that his father planned before he died. Oskar meets all of the
people who’ve got ‘Black’ as a surname, no one seems to have known his father. He meets a lot of
special people during his hunt. One of them is ‘the renter’ of his grandmother. She lives across the
street from Oskar and got a mysterious renter. Oskar isn’t supposed to meet him, but when he does
they click really well. Together they search for the owner of the key, and in the end, they decide to dig
up the casket of Oskar’s father. Not long after Oskar hears an old voicemail from Abby Black, one of
the people Oskar met throughout his hunt. The key is from her ex-husband, William, Black who sold
all his father’s stuff after he died, as well as the blue vase. When William found out that there was a
key in the blue vase from a safe, he was devastated. This is how Oskar’s hunt came to an end.
Besides Oskar’s story, there is another story about his grandparents. It’s a story told through letters.
His grandparents are from Dresden, a city that was firebombed in World War II. His granddad lost his
ability to speak. At that time his grandparents didn’t know each other yet. Years later when they met in
America they fell in love and lived together. When Oskar’s grandmother became pregnant with
Thomas, his grandfather ran away. But when he heard that his son, Thomas, died in the attack he came
back to New York. They live together again but aren’t allowed to be seen together so he is referred to
as ‘the renter’.
2. Character development
Oskar is a nine-year-old boy who lives in New York City with his mother and grandmother. He is very
intelligent, curious and is constantly asking questions to everyone. He is different than other kids his
age, so he doesn’t have many friends. Before his father’s death, he was constantly challenged to
overcome his fear. After his death Oskar feels like he doesn’t have his guidance anymore, he becomes
depressed and anxious about many things. Throughout his treasure hunt, he overcomes some fears. He
does this by setting rules for himself and by inventing far-fetched things to protect himself from
dangerous things. Most of the time his inventions are impossible, it doesn’t give true security, it is
more psychologically.
The way Oskar doesn’t match his age could be a metaphor for Americans in particular. To how they
felt after 9/11.
At the end of the book, he is still grieving about his father’s death but he isn’t repeatedly imagining
how his father died, he focuses on their last moments together. It shows Oskar that he still has love
and safety in his life.
3. the connection of your book to the theme, illustrate with a quotation.
9/11 is a well-known terrorist attack, in which nearly 3000 people were killed. It was and still is
worldwide news every year.
