EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
PAIR 1: Why does Oskar share the interview about the Hiroshima with his class? How is Tomoyasu’s perception of war related to Mr. Black’s? 189
---See Mr. Black's comment on war on 161.
----> How is Oskar's presentation of the interview with Tomoyasu a form of "shared trauma therapy" for Oskar's PTSD? How does it validate his despair?
Psychotherapy for PTSD
Psychotherapy (sometimes called “talk therapy”) involves talking with a mental health professional to treat a mental illness. Psychotherapy can occur one-on-one or in a group. Talk therapy treatment for PTSD usually lasts 6 to 12 weeks, but it can last longer. Research shows that support from family and friends can be an important part of recovery.
Effective psychotherapies tend to emphasize a few key components, including education about symptoms, teaching skills to help identify the triggers of symptoms, and skills to manage the symptoms. One helpful form of therapy is called cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. CBT can include:
1 Exposure therapy. This helps people face and control their fear. It gradually exposes them to the trauma they experienced in a safe way. It uses imagining, writing, or visiting the place where the event happened. The therapist uses these tools to help people with PTSD cope with their feelings.
2 Cognitive restructuring. This helps people make sense of the bad memories. Sometimes people remember the event differently than how it happened. They may feel guilt or shame about something that is not their fault. The therapist helps people with PTSD look at what happened in a realistic way.
3 Shared Trauma Therapy: Talk Therapies Help People Overcome PTSD, for they:
Teach about trauma and its effects
Use relaxation and anger-control skills
Provide tips for better sleep, diet, and exercise habits
Help people identify and deal with guilt, shame, and other feelings about the event
Focus on changing how people react to their PTSD symptoms. For example, therapy helps people face reminders of the trauma
Set realistic goals for yourself
Break up large tasks into small ones, set some priorities, and do what you can as you can
Try to spend time with other people, and confide in a trusted friend or relative. Tell others about things that may trigger symptoms.
Expect your symptoms to improve gradually, not immediately
Identify and seek out comforting situations, places, and people
PAIR 2: How do compasses work? Why does Oskar give a “compass pendant” to Mr. Black? How does this connect to Oskar's quest to find the lock? page193
----How does this show that Oskar is questing toward Organized Innocence in "refusing to contribute to the Experienced views of others"?
PAIR 3: Review the letter from the cab driver on page 193. How is Oskar contributing to the Organized Innocent perspective of the cab driver?
“(Mr. Black) said poverty made him nervous, not people” How is Mr. Black exhibiting Organized Innocence here? page 194
Connect this realization to Francis's epiphany that "color does not make people predictable...poor and desperate people are subject to all the ugliness that poverty bequeaths them. I was always sorry when I forgot that." (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys)
----How is Mr. Black becoming "native" for Oskar in his quest toward Organized Innocence on the topics of love for others?
PAIR 4: Why is the letter that Grandfather writes marked up with red ink? Who marked it up? Why is it significant that this letter was read? 208-216
---How Is GF a foil to both Oskar's Dad and Oskar when GF writes, "I am so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything." (page 216)
----Why is this circled as an error in thought? (not a grammatical error).
----Compare this sentiment to William Blake's Experienced poem "The Clod and the Pebble":
The Clod and the Pebble
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."
----How does Oskar's Dad reject his Dad's rejection of love?
PAIR 5: --------> Recalling his Dad's elaborate tale of the Sixth Borough drifting away from NYC, Oskar recalls the girl and boy who communicate over tin cans and strings. She tells him she loves him and the boy "puts her love for him (in the tin can) on the shelf in his closet...he would never open it because he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there." page 220
------------------> How is recalling this story a form of Organized Innocence for Oskar?
---How could Oskar benefit from this story and recall that his Dad's love for him is there and need not seek it on the five messages on the answering machine?
----How is the "can with the voice of love in it" like Oskar's remembrance of his Dad's Sixth Borough story ?
PAIR 6: Oskar's Dad on the Sixth Borough: “There’s nothing that could convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold onto.” 221
Why does Oskar’s Dad differentiate between those who want to believe (optimists) and those who do not (pessimists) when describing the Sixth Borough?
---Explain optimist v pessimist in Blakean terms on Innocence and Experience: page 221.
---Connect to the eventual optimism in Francis and Gus:
PAIR 7: Ruth Black recalls how her deceased husband used to shine a spotlight at night so Ruth could see him from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. After he died, Ruth still looks for the light and comments that it was like looking for the light when he was alive in the daytime, "I knew it was there. I just couldn't see it." (Foer 252).
---How is Ruth Black a native mentor for Oskar and journeying toward Organized Innocence on lost love?
---How is the photo on page 253 of the 9/11 Spotlight Memorial helpful to all those who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center in their quest to Organized Innocence on lost love?:
“Assembled on the roof of the Battery Parking Garage south of the 9/11 Memorial, the twin beams reach up to four miles into the sky and are comprised of eighty-eight 7,000-watt xenon light bulbs positioned into two 48-foot squares, echoing the shape and orientation of the Twin Towers.” ("9/11 Memorial and Museum")