Coping with Trauma in Extremely Close & Incredibly Close

1. Introduction

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer was first published in 2005, about 4 years after the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States. In the book we follow 9 year old Oskar Schell as he tries to find the lock that fits the key he found in his father's closet. Oskar believes the key is part of a Reconnaissance Expedition, a kind of treasure hunting game he used to play with his father. Oskar's father died in the 9/11 terrorist attack and the story is set a few years after the event. Oskar still struggles with the death of his father. Oskar's narrative is interrupted by letters written by Oskar's grandfather. Oskar's grandfather tells the story of his life to his child, Oskar's father, as he left before Oskar's father was born. Oskar's grandfather survived the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, but eventually caused him to lose his ability to speak. In Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close trauma plays a large role. Each character tries to cope with the traumatic event of a family member's death in a different way. The research question I would like to investigate is: How effective are the coping mechanisms used by the family to deal with the trauma of losing a family member to the 9/11 incident in the book?To answer my research question I will first explain what trauma is and I will give a brief overview of common coping mechanisms. Second, I will analyse the two characters in the book: Oskar and Oskar's grandfather. For both I will determine with what mechanism they are trying to cope with trauma and whether they are successful or not.In my opinion it is important to know whether fictional characters are able to deal with trauma or not. People with traumatic experiences can use fiction as an example of how to deal with trauma and if fictional characters can set a positive example by dealing with their fictional trauma. This can help real people to deal with their trauma by showing possible ways of dealing with trauma.

2. Trauma and Coping Mechanisms

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, trauma has 3 definitions. One of the definitions is that of an physical injury. This definition is not relevant to this paper. However, the other two definitions are relevant to this paper. The first defines trauma as an unpleasant and upsetting experience that affects you for a long time. The second definition is a mental state of extreme shock caused by a very frightening or unpleasant experience (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Trauma). These two definitions are almost similar, the difference between the two is that the first one describes the event itself and the second one describes the state caused by an event. For this paper I'll mostly use the second definition, because I will analyse the effects of events on the characters and not the events themselves.In Sien Uytterschout and Kristiaan Versluys's article Melancholy and Mourning in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close two Freudian terms of the field of trauma studies are mentioned: 'acting out' or melancholia and 'working through' or mourning (216). These two terms were reintegrated in trauma studies by Dominick LaCapra and have become the two most common theories about coping with trauma in literature (216).Uytterschout and Versluys also write in their article that, according to Pierre Janet, there are two ways of remembering trauma: traumatic and narrative memory (218). Trauma victims suffer dissociated remembrance or self-inflicted amnesia, which Janet calls le souvenir traumatique, or traumatic memory (218). Traumatic memory is a modification in the victim's consciousness which enables the victim to temporarily forget the traumatic event (218). Trauma victims need to incorporate such traumatic memory into a larger coherent whole by learning to express themselves and thus changing traumatic memory into narrative memory (218).Melancholics are constantly reliving their traumatic event, or as Uytterschout and Versluys write in their article: the melancholic finds himself trapped in an endless reliving of his traumatic past while acting that past out in a post-traumatic present. (218). The characteristics of a melancholic used by Uytterschout and Versluys, as defined by LaCapra, also include holding onto the past, because moving on is considered betraying the people and especially loved ones who did not survive the event (218). Trauma victims who mourn or work through their experience, try to articulate a narrative of the traumatic event (Uytterschout and Versluys 218). This is similar to Pierre Janet's concept of narrative memory, which is also used by LaCapra (218). Mourning helps the victim to remember the traumatic event in the past, while at the same time they realise they are living in the present (218). Uytterschout and Versluys close their introduction to trauma and coping mechanisms with a short note on the mentioned coping mechanisms (219). Pure melancholia does not help the victim cope with their trauma, but pure mourning does not help either (219). According to Uytterschout and Versluys, trauma theorists consider an interlacing of acting out and working through as the best way of dealing with trauma (219).

3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close two major traumatic events are presented: the Bombing of Dresden in the Second World War and the 9/11 terrorist attack. These two traumatic events have affected the characters in the book greatly. I will analyse two characters in this paper: Oskar's grandfather and Oskar himself.3.1 Oskar's Grandfather

Oskar's grandfather, or Thomas Schell Senior, is the sole survivor of his family of the Bombing of Dresden. The night the bombing started his girlfriend Anna told him she was pregnant with his child. That was the last time he saw her. Seven years after the bombing Thomas meets Anna's sister, who is the sole survivor of the bombing of her family. He had already lost his ability to speak and communicated through writing in notebooks and the 'yes' and 'no' tattooed in his palms. The two get married soon after and life together in an apartment. A few months into their marriage they start to mark of 'nothing places' in their apartment, places where one can go to and be nothing for awhile. Thomas left before Oskar's father was born and returned years later after Oskar's father died. As mentioned earlier in this paper, being able to articulate your feelings about a traumatic event and being able to turn a traumatic memory into a narrative memory is crucial to coping with trauma. Oskar's grandfather is unable to talk about the past and he also loses the ability to speak in general. This is an extreme form of melancholia. In the first letter in the book he writes:To my unborn child: I haven't always been silent, I used to talk and talk and talk and talk, the silence overtook me like a cancer, it was one of my first meals in America, I tried to tell the waiter, The way you just handed me that knife, that reminds me of -- but I couldn't finish the sentence, her name wouldn't come she was locked inside me ...(Foer 16)Following this quote he continues to write about how he lost words and in the end went completely mute. He is unable to turn his traumatic memory into a narrative memory, because he is unable to talk about his trauma. In the last letter of the book Thomas writes in his daybook when he is asked at the airport what the purpose of his visit to the United States is: To mourn To mourn try to life(Foer 268). I think that he went back to Oskar's grandmother because he was ready to start working through his trauma. The last letter ends with a three unreadable pages, earlier in the same letter Thomas writes: There won't be enough pages in this book for me to tell you what I need to tell you, I could write smaller, I could slice the pages down their edges to make two pages, I could write over my own writing, but then what? (276). The last thing Thomas writes down and is readable is that he has seen Oskar for the last two months and that they have practiced digging in Central Park (281). One chapter that continues the story of Thomas Schell after the last letter is written by Oskar's grandmother and describes how Thomas leaves for the airport and Oskar's grandmother follows him there. They decide to stay at the airport, because Thomas can't leave, but can't go back home either (306-313). Thomas has tried to cope with his trauma, but has not turned his traumatic memory into a narrative memory and is therefore still unable to live a normal life. There is no indication that things will change for the better in the future, however, it is mentioned in the book that staying at the airport is not going to last forever (Foer 313). Ilka Saal writes in her article Regarding the Pain of Self and Other: Trauma Transfer and Narrative Framing in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close that Thomas Schell and Oskar's grandmother both struggle with the traumatic memory of the Bombing of Dresden (457) and in the end they are stuck at the airport (458). According to Saal the story of Oskar's grandparents functions as a contrast to Oskar's story, so the reader can better appreciate Oskar's attempts to overcome his trauma (458). 3.4 Oskar Schell

Oskar Schell is a sophisticated nine year old who lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Years after the incident, he still wears 'heavy boots', his way of saying he is depressed, because of his father's death. He finds a key in an envelop with 'Black' written on it in his father's closet and embarks on a journey to meet all Blacks in New York to find out which lock the key fits. Eventually the first Black he met leaves a message on his home phone and it turns out that her ex-husband knows what lock the key is for: a safe deposit box. The key had no significance for Oskar's father, it was simply in the vase he bought. When the reader first meets Oskar, he is a boy who is still struggling with the death of his father. While he seems to be more intelligible than most nine year old children, he also is scared of more things than most, for example, he is scared of public transport, elevators and skyscrapers. He is also scared of strangers, but still decides to travel around New York to visit all the Blacks in the phonebook. Oskar seems to have been a melancholic till the point he finds the key. The search for the lock that the key fits forces Oskar to confront his fear of public transport, as he is forced to go by IRT train to the Bronx(Foer 194). He also visits the Empire State Building, even with his fear of skyscrapers (243-255). His journey in search of the lock to his father's key is a journey in search of closure. I think Oskar wants to look for the purpose of the key, because it is like the reconnaissance expeditions his father used to give him (8). He think the key is possibly the last expedition his father left him and by solving this last mystery he hopes to create one last memory of his father to hold on to and perhaps move on with his life. Saal writes in her article that Oskar is a good example of the problem of narrative integration (460). Oskar doesn't speak about the worst day of his life, he only listens to the last telephone messages his father left (460). In the last chapter Oskar digs up his father's empty coffin with his grandfather, his grandfather asks him why and Oskar answers Because it's the truth, and Dad loved the truth That he's dead. (321). Digging up his father's grave has significance for Oskar as well as his grandfather. Oskar needs to see with his own eyes his father's coffin to get the evidence he needs to convince himself his father is gone. For Oskar's grandfather it is an opportunity to deliver all the letters he wrote, but didn't send and give himself some kind of closure. After Oskar comes home he talks with his mother and tells her he tried his best to get better (323) and that it is okay for her to fall in love again (325). When he finds the pictures of a man jumping from the World Trade Center, he rips them out and flipped through them in backwards order, so that it looked like the man was flying up through the window (325). Oskar then thinks that if he had more pictures his father would fly back through the window and back home to tell him a story backwards and everybody would be safe (325-326). In these last two pages you can see Oskar has changed, but still wishes his father to not have died. Oskar, like his grandfather is trying to cope with his trauma, but unlike his grandfather, Oskar clearly continues to try working through his trauma, while it is not clear whether his grandfather continues as well. 4. Conclusion

I wanted to answer how effective the coping mechanisms are in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I first defined trauma and coping mechanism and analysed two characters: Oskar's grandfather and Oskar himself. The relevant definition of trauma for this paper is a mental state of extreme shock caused by a very frightening or unpleasant experience (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Trauma). Both Oskar and Oskar's grandfather have suffered a traumatic event where they lost a loved one. Oskar's grandfather lost his girlfriend and his unborn child in the Bombing of Dresden and Oskar lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Coping with trauma is a mix of melancholia or acting out and mourning or working through (Uytterschout and Verlsluys 218-219). Melancholia or acting out is a state where the victim can't express themselves and are unable to work their traumatic memory into a narrative memory (218). Mourning or working through is the process that enables the victim to convert traumatic memory into narrative memory and move on with life. Both Oskar and his grandfather have been in a state of melancholia and both have also moved on to mourning. Oskar is working on getting better, but it is not sure whether his grandfather will continue trying after his first attempt. Jonathan Safran Foer's book offers readers two different outlooks on people coping with trauma. As Saal mentions in her article, Oskar's grandfather's story functions as contrast to the story of Oskar (458). Because Oskar's grandfather struggles the whole book, without any definite positive outcomes, the reader can see more clearly how Oskar is doing his best to work through his trauma. The book does not give any definite outcomes, it leaves in the open whether these two characters will overcome their trauma or not. I think this increases the value this book has for actual trauma victims, because it doesn't tell them that it is necessary to quickly work through their traumas. Instead it offers them perspectives that they might try themselves and not disappointing them when the method in the book doesn't work for their own cases.Bibliography

Foer, Jonathan Safran, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. London: Penguin Books, 2006.Saal, Ilka, Regarding the Pain of Self and Other: Trauma Transfer and Narrative Framing in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. MFS Modern Fiction Studies 57:3 (2011): 451-476.Trauma. ldoceonline.com. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2013. Web. 6 January 2013. Uytterschout, Sien and Kristiaan Versluys, Melancholy and Mourning in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incrediby Close. Orbis Litterarum 63:3 (2008): 216-236.