Loss In 'Extremely Loud And The Straight Story'

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Unexpected Surprises One of the most difficult things anybody can deal with is loss. It’s a part of life one person will never understand until they experience it. It starts with denial. “I can’t believe he is actually dead.” This step takes a long time for people to get through because it is the most difficult step. One has experienced his or her entire life with this person and now they are just gone. However once this denial step is passed, honoring the person becomes a lot easier and more enjoyable. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and the movie The Straight Story both are guidelines of how to deal with loss. While responding to an unexpected event such as loss, one needs to not deny the event, but bring…show more content…
Oskar thought back to the moments that his dad impacted him the most. He thought back to when his dad said, “What would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimeter?" Oskar says, "I guess I would have moved a grain of sand." His dad responds, "Which would mean you changed the Sahara" (86). This conversation with his dad inspired him to honor his dad after his death. It took him awhile to burst through the denial zone, but once he did, he realized that his dad told him that any small act can change the world. Readers can learn that remembering old conversations and acting on them is a way many people cope with loss. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close also teaches readers that people strengthen relationships after loss. Oskar’s relationship with his mom was much like a roller coaster ride throughout the entire book. He was very mad that his mother was falling in love with another man. He lied to her, didn’t communicate with her that well, and didn’t appreciate her. However towards the end of the book, he started to realize the importance she had. “I…show more content…
His brother lived in Wisconsin and Alvin lived in Iowa, so they had not had the greatest relationship. They barely had talked to each other, until Alvin was told that his brother had suffered a stroke. This is a very scary event for anyone, especially for an older person. Once Alvin found out that his brother had a stroke, he knew that he had to go visit him. He was not stuck in the denial phase as much as Oskar was, so his process of honoring his brother was a lot quicker than most people. The only problem was that he did not have a driver’s license. As a result, he decided he would ride a lawn mower all the way from Iowa to Wisconsin. Alvin could have asked someone to drive him, but he felt that in order to honor his brother, he would get himself there with no one else’s help. He could have asked someone else to drive; however because of this unexpected event, he felt that he did not want anyone else’s help. Not only do people go to extreme levels when they experience an unexpected event, but they also reflect on moments that happened to them a long time ago. On Alvin’s journey, he ran into a runaway teenage girl. This girl said that she was running away because she became pregnant and thought her family would not approve of her. Alvin explained to her in a way that was so simple, yet so complex. He said, “I'd give each one of
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