Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

16th, 20th & 23rd March 

Essay question for mid-term grade 

Further exploration of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 

"The Sixth Borough"  

Lesson materials 16th, 20th & 23rd March 

1. I will introduce your essay assignment. 

2. You will complete the additional analysis material in this presentation before you start your essay as it will be useful for your understanding of the novel and, therefore, your analysis. 

Essay for mid-term grade 

As we cannot sit our Socratic seminar at the moment or write an analysis paper at school, we would like you to write an essay showing your understanding and analysis of the novel. Use literary analysis terminology and academic language in your essay. Your essay will have 5 paragraphs: Introduction, part 1, part 2 and part 3 and a conclusion. 

There are two choices on the next two slides. Make your choice and upload it to the ELO hand in assignment by Thursday 26th March before midnight. Always use PEED in your body paragraphs. Construct a clear thesis at the end of your introduction and topic sentences for each paragraph. 

Topic 1: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is, at its roots, a study of human yearning for love in the face of brutal cataclysm. In the novel, characters lose each other and find each other in the crucible of tragedy. Write an essay about this in three parts:

Part 1) What is lost to the major character of the novel in the wake of the attack of September 11, 2001? How are existing bonds strengthened in the wake of this tragedy? In this paragraph, discuss the relationships among Oskar, Mom, and Grandma.

Part 2) Write a paragraph about the bombing of Dresden. How does this horrific event of World War II affect the Schell and Schmidt families? Who is lost in this bombing? How does the bombing, in the end, lead to another marriage and the birth of a child?

Part 3) In summation, discuss how a marriage that was destroyed by the memories of Dresden is reunited in the wake of September 11th. Who returns to whom in the aftermath? What characters begin to learn about their roots as a result of this reunion?

Topic 2

The structure of the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is unusual from the beginning, with the mixing of different narrators and syntax styles, but Jonathan Safran Foer further muddies the narrative waters by having the narrative regularly interrupted by pages that contain something other than plot. Write an essay about these pages, discussing what their connection to the narrative is. Who, presumably, has inserted them into the novel and why? How does their inclusion affect the way the novel is perceived as an object? What does it become?

Part 1) Photos

Part 2) Pages with a single phrase on them.

Part 3) Blank pages.

Thesis statement 

 The thesis statement is the main idea or argument in an essay. It shows the purpose of the essay. It is not a question. ​

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The thesis statement consists of a topic , which is a fact, and an opinion.​

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Exercise 1: Identify the topic (T) and the opinion (O) above the correct words in the sentence below:​

                                   (T)                (O)​

For example: Ajax has the ability to win the playoffs this year.​

​

Identify the topic and opinion in the following 7 thesis statements 

Install the LessonUp app for iPhone, iPad or Android from the app store (free) or go to LessonUp.app

Football is one of the world’s most popular sports.​

Ford makes the best automobile today.​

Cats make ideal house pets.​

Television is a waste of time.​

Always have an electrician do your wiring.​

Parents are not strict enough with their teenagers.​

Injuries can ruin careers.

Example from our Socratic Seminar 

What:  Plot Oskar writes to various famous people that he admires and these letters, and the rejection letters that they engender, appear between the plot action. 

How: The technique of interspersing the plot with other text types is used throughout the novel. On further investigation it would appear that the rejection letters are not random they seem to be a reaction to a plot event ( could this be so with other items?). The rejection letters seem to appear after Oskar receives a rejection or a hinderance in his quest. 

Why: The authorial intent is to augment and highlight the rejections that Oskar is facing. The variety of rejections that Oskar faces is subtly emphasised for the audience. 

23rd March 2020 

War and ELIC 

Stuff  that happens to me 

Consider the following three pictures 

Answer these questions in your exercise book:

1. What is the atmosphere created in the picture?

2. Where and when to you think this picture was taken? 

3. What clues did you use to make that guess? 

Read the following information 

Do you know know where and when the photos were taken? 

Metaphor 

An expression often found in literature that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics to the person or object. 

"The mind is an ocean" or "the city is a jungle" are both metaphors. 

Metaphor and simile (remind yourself with this video) are the most commonly used figures of speech used in everyday language. 

source: Cambridge dictionary 

The Sixth Borough 

Consider carefully "The Sixth Borough" pgs 217 -223. Find two short quotes from the text that you think express the meaning of the chapter somehow.

Add your quotes to the mind map on the next slide. 

What does this chapter mean in the context of the novel? Write down your answer. 

When was this story told in the chronology of the story? Is that important? Why? 

"The Sixth Borough"

The Sixth Borough 

If you go to Wikipedia  you can see that the metaphorical term "sixth borough" was already in use before Jonathan Safran Foer used this term for his extended metaphor. Possible ideas: 

The Sixth Borough is a metaphor for Oskar and his dad

A metaphor for Oskars journey

Growing up and leaving your childhood behind 

9/11 part of the city is lost and frozen in time

Losing others when memories are frozen in time

Figuritive Language 

 Figurative language and other literary devices are elements within a novel that have a deeper meaning than just their literal meaning within the reality of the story. 

 Give a possible explanation of the following examples and name the literary devices Foer used Consider - symbol, metaphor, simile, allusion, etc.

1.  Oskar’s description that he is wearing “heavy boots” 
   
2. Oskar description that he “zipped himself into the sleeping bag of himself” 
   
3. What is the significance of colour in the novel? Why does Oskar wear all white? What about the use of black in the novel? 
   
4. What about the continued reference to the key, doorknobs and locks? 
   
5. The pictures in the novel. What do they refer to? Why have they been included? 
   
6. How and why are birds referred to in the novel. 
   

23rd March 2020 

Extract interview with the author  

Essay - are there any questions? 

Book club - basic information 

Analysis of Grandma 

Reversals and endings 

An Interview with Jonathan Safran Foer. Answer the questions on the next slide.

Interviewer: How did the idea for the novel originate? 

 Jonathan Safran Foer: …To make a long story short, I’ve tried to follow my instincts. I’ve tried to write the book I would want to read, rather than the book I would want to write. I’ve tried never to ask if something was smart, but instead if it felt genuine. A set of themes rose to the surface: silence, invention, anxiety, naiveté, absence, the difficulty of expressing love, war… I felt I couldn’t push them down, and I chose not to try to. Voices became pronounced. 

Some characters became vivid, others vanished. A plot… happened. If it sounds inefficient, I’ve described it properly. I cannot imagine how I could have been less efficient. But maybe inefficiency is the point. 

One can use a map and drive to a destination. Or one can follow the most interesting, beautiful roads–trusting oneself, trusting the car, and trusting the logic of the pavement– and end up where you couldn’t have realized you wanted to be until you got there. Writing, for me, is about following roads. And that intuitive, wandering approach explains not only why this book is so far from where I started, but why I feel it so personally, so viscerally, and so, well, loudly and closely. 

 

This excerpt is taken from an interview with the author on http://www.bookbrowse.com 

Answer these questions in your exercise book

1. What are some of the themes that Jonathan Safran Foer mentions in the interview excerpt? What other themes did we discuss in class? 
   
2. How did he manage to end up with the novel that he did? 
   
3. What metaphor does Foer use to describe his process of writing? 
   
4. Apart from the attacks on 9/11 and Dresden, which other attack is described in the novel? Why do you think Foer includes them? 
   

What are some of the themes that Jonathan Safran Foer mentions in the interview excerpt? What other themes did we discuss in class?

How did he manage to end up with the novel that he did?

What metaphor does Foer use to describe his process of writing?

Apart from the attacks on 9/11 and Dresden, which other attack is described in the novel? Why do you think Foer includes them?

Grandma

Write in the mindmap a descriptor (adjective) that pertains to the character of Grandma as she appears in the novel. Think of her role, particularly in the broken Schell family? 

 

Grandma

Grandma pg 306 - 314 

How can we find the root of each of these descriptors in the night before the bombing of Dresden? 

Find a quote that shows where her personality has its origins.

Write your quote(s) in the mindmap 

Grandma quotes

Dresden 

How did that night and the subsequent regret shape Grandma's worldview and personality? 

Endings - reverse 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ends in reverse, with Oskar experiencing the pain of September 11, 2001, backwards, ending with everyone safe and happy. Grandma does the same thing earlier in the novel with the bombing of Dresden. 

Choose one of the two reversals  (Grandma 306 - 314, Oskar pg 325-326)

Analyse the tone of this reversal. Is it elegiac, hopeful, or angry or something else ? How does this reversing fantasy affect the characters who are formulating it in their minds? 

 

Class discussion: write your ideas in the meeting chat 

Determine what Foer is suggesting in the final moments of the novel, with the tragedy of 9/11 reversed. Clearly, the last few pages are intended to have a painful and bittersweet hope to them. What does it mean that the happy ending of the novel is in fact a fantasy? How can the world be good to humanity if reversing events is the only way to find happiness? Does the class think the book's worldview is happy or fatalistic?

Homework for 27th March

Think of an experience you have had in your life that you feel shaped the person you have become. Write the story of that experience, told in reverse in the manner of the novel's final pages. Make sure that every action involved in the experience is presented in reverse. End the story at the beginning, explaining your worldview before the events. How were you different before this experience? 

share your homework with me before 12:00pm  on 27th March