Close Study Guide I:  Chapters 1 – 5        Due May 10, 2014
Introduction:  How people deal with loss is extremely complicated both physically and emotionally, and the journey to healing is marked with incredibly difficult obstacles. People react to loss in many different ways.  In Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, published in 2005, we read about how Oskar Schell, the nine-year old narrator, and his family journey toward healing, both emotionally and spiritually, after the death of Oskar’s father who was killed in the Twin Towers terrorist attack on 9/11.  Many times, we do not know why things happen, and we may spend a life time, like Oskar and his family searching for answers.  One critic expresses this thought, “The choice of narrator creates a framework for exploring the emotional significance of September 11, which is far more complex than the facts of the historical event.”  His words underscore the extremely and incredibly difficult process of healing.

Themes:  Dealing with loss, the journey toward healing and acceptance, the impact of the past shaping the present identity and the future, the role of memory in shaping identity,

Background: Writing, [a motif], plays an important role in this book by Jonathan Safran Foer in helping people navigate through their extremely difficult losses:  both past and present.  All of the major characters have experienced loss and their recovery is very much part of this [written] narrative. Some write words on their hands, some write letters, others write letters that are never sent. Thus because the journey is not always a clear path to recovery, the author has arranged his book “where the rhythms of chronology disintegrate together with the anticipation of survival” (Nicola King, Memory, Narrative, Identity, 3). In King’s book, she addresses how war, migration, abuse, assault or a serious accident, like 9/11 makes the journey toward healing extremely challenging, yet incredibly close. Foer’s story is not arranged in chronological order, for elements of the past are interjected in chapters, to mirror the healing process of dealing with the past in order to find healing for identity in the present. For that reason, Dresden Germany is another setting important in this journey.  Hence, the book begins with a child, Oskar, a nine-year old, where his quest to find out answers is analogous to the quest to discover the “What The?” of life.  While reading the chapters, make note of recurring patterns or words (motifs) that will help you in [analyzing] interpreting the individual and universal themes.

Directions:  Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.  It is important that you respond to the questions by providing a textual reference—use direct quotes—up to three lines.  Do not provide a plot summary.  Interpretation and analysis is required. Make sure to cite correctly (use a signal phrase, followed by the citation, and the tag line) and include your edition at the top of the page.   Each question is worth 2 points.   Please type your responses on a separate sheet of paper and attach this to the top.

Chapter 1:  “What The?
1.    What is important about the title of this first chapter?
2.    Oskar says, “The more I found, the less I understood,” (10).  Explain how the writer uses Oskar’s words to suggest the meaning of journey.
3.    White is Oskar’s favorite color.  Why is this color symbolic?  Analyze its importance to the theme?  What does it suggest?
4.    What is significant about the last two times that Oskar hears his father’s voice?  Why do you think the author includes this for only Oskar to hear?
5.    How does Oskar deal with the loss of his father?  What does he begin to do?

Chapter 2:  “Why I’m Not Where You are 5/21/63.”  The date indicates that this chapter will discuss an event that happened in the past.  It begins with a letter addressed to “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…” (16).   The narrator, just to save you time… is Thomas Schell, Sr., Oskar’s grandfather and Thomas Schell, Jr.’s father who has lost his voice.

1.    Why does the chapter begin in this way?  What is significant is this to the theme of loss?
2.    Why does he write in notebooks?
3.    What do you think is the loss Thomas suffers from?
4.    On page 29, there is a photo of a glass doorknob and lock which takes up an entire page.  Why do you think it is at the end of the chapter?  What is the symbolic significance of this and how does it suggest a theme?
5.    The chapter ends with Thomas’s words: “The end of suffering does not justify the suffering; and so there is no end to suffering, what a mess I am, I thought….Help” (33-34).   Does this suggest the meaning of the door and lock?

Chapter 3:  “Googolplex.”  We are back to the present.
1.    Describe Oskar’s state of mind “even after a year.”
2.    Why does Oskar go into his father’s closet?  What does he discover? What sends Oskar on his new found quest? Why is this important to the theme? What is the important clue about the envelope?
3.    What does writing accomplish for Oskar?  Who does he write to?
4.    What is a common theme in the images in Oskar’s scrapbook, “Stuff that Happened to Me,” suggest?  What is the message that connects the images?
5.    Why is Oskar silent about his father’s messages?  What role does silence play in healing?
Chapter 4:  “My Feelings.”  This chapter begins with a letter to Oskar, dated 12 September 2003, from his grandmother.
1.    What is symbolic about letters?  How are they used to connect the past with the present?  Why is this significant to a theme?
2.     “We never talked about the past” Who says this and why is this relevant?
3.    Why does Oskar’s grandmother want to marry Thomas Schell, Sr.?
4.    What can’t Thomas erase from his memory?
5.    Why do they agree not to use German?

Chapter 5:  “The Only Animal.”  More disappointments for Oskar.
1.    What is symbolic about “heavy boots”?  Who experiences “heavy boots”?
2.    “The Only Animal” in Abby Black’s townhouse is an elephant.  Where is the picture located? What does an elephant symbolize?  How does this relate to voice and identity?
3.    Why does Oskar lie to his grandmother?
4.    Explain what is on Oskar’s card as shown on page 99.  How do you interpret this?
5.    What type of symbol is the Nature Hike Anklet?  What does it symbolize?