The Meaning of the Photographs in the Novel ""Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close""

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Literature - Modern Literature, grade: 2,0, Fontys University of Applied Sciences Venlo (International Business), language: English, abstract: In Jonathan Safran Foer's novel 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' photographs help the main character, Oskar Schell, to document his thoughts and feelings. Oskar is an intelligent and curious boy, so the photographs he collects in a scrapbook named 'Stuff That Happened to Me' are rich in diversity. First there are many pictures which refer directly or indirectly to family members, like his father and his grandfather. Moreover, Oskar collects pictures of people he is not related to but admires a lot, like Stephen Hawking or his cat. The third group of his photographs includes strangers whom the boy briefly or never met at all. Although not every photograph in the novel can be divided into these three groups, I will only focus on selected photographs according to the three groups. This report will argue that every single group has its own function and reveals different things about Oskar. While photographs connected to his father or grandfather give away something about Oskar¿s past and his way he of dealing with his loss, the second group, pictures about admired ones helps to become a better image of Oskar¿s personality and his emotions. The third group that contains photographs of strangers represents his social interaction with foreigners and his interests. Through analyzing some particular photographs in their contexts, I will achieve a deeper look into Oskar¿s inside, so that I will gain more information about this character than the written pages in Foer¿s novel offers. Moreover, I want to prove that most of the chosen photographs which appear in the protagonist¿s scrapbook, whether they are taken by himself or by others, are connected to Thomas Schell Jr. and underline Oskar's emotional instability after his father¿s death.