Relationships Case - Oscar

There are many relationships throughout Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer and the one that people could understand the most was the one between Oscar and his mother. Oscar's mom had to be strong for her son because if she showed her weakness than maybe Oscar wouldn't be able to handle the loss of his father. She made decision that readers might have question, but in the end she did what only a mother could do, which is love her son the only way that she knew how. Oscar's mother gave him the space that he needed by letting him go on the search for the lock that went with the key. The relationship between Oscar and his mother clearly is released throughout this novel and opens our eyes to an example of how a single mom raises her kid after his father was a victim of September Eleventh.

The first time that we are introduced to Oscar's mother is when they are in the limo at his father's funeral. She finds out that Oscar has given away there apartment key to the mailwomen. Oscars feels that he has done nothing wrong and tries to explain his actions. She listen like a good mother, but explains why you shouldn't give your personals to people he didn't truly know. Oscar's mom was very calm during the whole conversation even though Oscar feels that she was mad and that she wished that it was him in the casket instead of his father. She wasn't crying and felt that she needed to be strong for her family, but inside you know that she is going through a lot. The thoughts that she was thinking, like what am I going to do now, can I survive with out him (Oscar's dad), wondering if Oscar was going to be okay, etc.. She was doing what she thought was right at the time, even though Oscar thought differently. Its as almost as if they are both scared to tell their true feelings. She is scared because she is a mess inside and he is scared because he just lost his father, the one he had the most connections to. Its as if they are scared to be alone with each other and his father was the one who was holding the family together.

The next time that Oscar and his mother talk it's about how his grandmother needs friends, and Oscar explains to his mother how he could be her friend. Oscar's mom then tries to tell him that she needs a friend more her age and that would understand more. Even though Oscar is a intelligent kid he will never have the knowledge of someone who has lived around the same time as his grandmother. Oscar then changes the subject onto his mother and her friend. She tries to explain to him that Ron is just a friend and that he helps keep her mind off things. He is someone to talk to and he makes her laugh. Oscar feels like she is betraying his father by having a friend and that eventually she would forget about him indefinitely. A lot of kids with parents that have passed away go through this same issue as Oscar. They feel their parents don't care anymore, but that is far from the truth. Their loved ones are always going to be in the back of their mind, but the single parents need to move on because if they don't then they will be living though the past instead of living in the now. The kids feel like that they can be there rock and be there for them whenever they are needed, but that cant be the truth for the rest of their life. Kids are going to grow up and want to start a family of their own and of course the grandparents are going to be involved, but once you have kids they are you number one priority. Your single parent is just going to be left alone most of the time and that is why they need friends. They need a friend that is going to be there for them when they need to talk or when they need a shoulder to cry on. Oscar just needs to realize that his mother loves his father very much, but she needs to move on. This issue of her forgetting her father is brought up later in the book and Oscar's true feelings come out about the whole situation and his mother tries to explain more about why she needs a friend in her life.

The next incident between Oscar and his mother was when he was remember how they went to storage unit and how dark and black it was and just how he remembered every single detail. He said " It was so quiet and so dark, and we were the only people there....I went through boxes in my brain. I took out a neat old film projector"(107) . The memory was so important to him that he felt a connection to his father through a memory with his mother. When he woke her up and began asking her all the questions about the storage hoping that there would be something so much greater that he wanted to know, but when she told him about it. It wasn't the answer that he wanted to hear and it more or less destroyed his happiness about it. His mother did know how much it mean to him and if she would have known maybe she would have lied to see the smile on his face grow wider with joy. Even though this kind of feeling happens to everyone its not a feeling that people want to go through. Anticipating on people saying one thing and then when they don't your crushed. There was truly nothing that could avoided this situation even though it ended up hurting Oscar.

The incident where Oscar reveals his feeling about how he truly feels is that of heart break. We are in the room and his mother is tucking him in a night and his mother ask him what's wrong, he says no , she replies are you sure and he says begins to tell him how he feels. This is different from when his father did the same thing, but didn't ask if Oscar was sure that nothing was wrong. Oscar only wishes that he would have said something and maybe Oscar would