Oskar Schell: Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close

In denial and occupying himself to avoid painful suffering of a loss, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’s nine-year old, Oskar Schell, demonstrates the difficulty of acknowledging one’s passing and undergoes a depressing state. Many people have experienced the pain to lose someone you love; Oskar loses Thomas Schell to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Reminiscing a late special someone isn’t a great feeling and Oskar knows that, but he misses his only friend. Wishing he was with his dad again, Oskar decides to go into his dad’s old room to make himself feel at ease. As he goes through Thomas’ personal belongings, Oskar came across an envelope with “... ‘Black’ written on the back’”(41), containing a key inside. Thinking the key was
Thomas Schell, Oskar’s father, was Oskar’s best friend, teacher, and father. The torment was unbearable, so Oskar created an excuse, which was to search for information about the key, to not think about his father. The discovery of a mysterious key in his father’s room made him feel eager and countless questions ran through his mind because the key is a secret between him and his father (52). The enigma deceives him, making him think that this was all part of Thomas’ plan; this key is a part of something big. Trying find an explanation for the key, Oskar discovers “Black” is a person’s name (46). This made him desperate; he wanted to locate the individual who can unravel the mystery. In order to find the right “Black”, Oskar “ ran home and did some more research, and found 472 people with the name Black in New York” (51). Instead of crying over his dad, he finds things to keep him busy, to not think of him as dead. He wanted to talk to someone who knew his dad, tell him stories just like he did, and how great of a man Thomas was (300). Excusing yourself from grief is normal, to keep yourself from thinking about how they’re deceased and that such an important figure isn’t there
After meeting countless “Blacks”, eventually he meets the person who he has been searching for; the second Black he visited has, or had, a husband named William Black who has been trying to find the person who had possession of the key (295). After finding that there is no connection between the key and his father, Oskar begins to acknowledge his father died without leaving a special quest for him behind, gradually giving up his excuse-disguised key to not be sad. He begins to realize he really is dead and that everything just seems to be a coincidence now, not an organized mission (299). It took him two years to grieve, to be depressed, and to acknowledge that his father is no longer there; “‘Looking for it let me stay close to him for a little while longer.’ ‘But won’t you always be close to him?’ I knew the truth. ‘No.’” (304). Sometimes your loved one’s demise feels unreal at first, but sooner or later you have to realize that they’re not there