T
RAUMA AND
R
EBIRTH
THE DYNAMICS OF PLOT IN FOER’S FICTION
Name: Esther E. Heuver Student Number: S1268651 Supervisor: Dr. I. Visser
Second Reader: Dr. V.K. Robillard Date: August 18, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 4
CHAPTER ONE
Models of Plot 8
CHAPTER TWO
The Dynamics of Plot: Everything is Illuminated 15
CHAPTER THREE
The Dynamics of Plot: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 24
CONCLUSION 31
INTRODUCTION
In 2002, Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) published his first novel Everything is Illuminated. It appeared on “Best Books of 2002” lists internationally and won, among others, the National Jewish Book Award and the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close appeared in 2005 and was again widely acclaimed. Everything is Illuminated tells the story of a young Jewish American, named Jonathan Safran Foer, who travels to a shtetl in Ukraine, Trachimbrod, in search of Augustine, a woman on a photograph who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. On the trip he is accompanied by the Ukrainian translator Alex Perchov and his blind Grandfather. Foer wrote his first novel while he was still an undergraduate at Princeton University. As a twenty-year-old student he decided to travel to the Ukraine in order to explore his ethnic roots. That the fictional character Jonathan Safran Foer bears the same name as the author is then not particularly surprising as the novel contains obviously an autobiographical content. Foer’s journey was unsuccessful, but it triggered his mind to imagine what might have happened on that trip which he put in writing in Everything is
Illuminated.
Foer’s second novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is also a quest and tells the story of a little nine-year-old boy, Oskar, who is taken across New York’s five boroughs. Oskar searches the lock that matches the key that he found in a vase in a closet after his Father’s death in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Oskar thinks (and hopes) that finding the lock will unravel the key’s secret. For that reason he plans to meet every person named Black living in New York. Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are set against a background of devastation – the first is set in post-World War II Ukraine and the second in post-9/11 New York, America – and deal with the themes of quest and trauma. In this dissertation, I explore the theme of trauma in Foer’s fiction using Christopher Booker’s plot structure descriptions. By exploring the dynamics of plot underlying the narrative structure I hope to shed new light on Foer’s fascinating fiction.
elements do not simply illustrate the text, since the text illustrates these visual elements as much. How do the visual elements serve the narrative’s plot structure? What is their function? These questions are addressed in my dissertation.
In order to examine the dynamics of plot, I use concepts of narratology, which defines the basic elements responsible for the form and functioning of narrative. Narratology is the study of narrative that describes, explores and explains narrative’s internal mechanisms. Narratologists trace the fundamental ways in which narratives are structured and organised, which means that narratological analysis leads to an insight into narrative’s underlying structure. This is a text-centered approach; early narratologists, such as Propp and Lévi-Strauss, allow little room for the reader’s response to narrative. In order to be able to investigate this dissertation’s topic, I use a more dynamic and contemporary approach to narrative that has taken the place of early narratological analysis. Christopher Booker’s book is central to my dissertation framework as it explores plot structure in light of human psychology in order to arrive at a fuller exploration of narrative structure and the impact on the reader.
Christopher Booker (1937), founder and editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye, wrote a book on the seven basic plots of storytelling that he titled The Seven Basic Plots: Why
We Tell Stories (2004). While working on another book, The Neophiliacs, published in 1969, Booker’s attention was drawn to the (unconscious) patterns that underlie the way in which human beings imagine stories. Booker claims that although storytelling is highly creative and ingenious, it conforms to universal patterns and fundamental elements because storytelling centres round archetypes. His account of the seven plots provides an introduction into the basic components from which a story is created. Booker’s notions describe the representation and functioning of the literary plot in order to explore a narrative’s significance. Booker’s depiction of the Rebirth plot is particularly useful to my analysis given that Foer’s protagonists need to deal with and work through trauma in order to reach a state of renewal; each protagonist needs to come to terms with his/her traumatic past before rebirth can take place.
Booker’s theory accords with Peter Brooks’ theory, which relies on a Freudian psychoanalytic approach in order to highlight the plot’s significance. In Reading for the Plot:
therefore highly useful as this directs attention to returns in text that guide the narrative toward a satisfying ending, toward rebirth.
In order to explore the use and function of the multiple visual images in Foer’s novels, Scott McCloud is my guide as he focuses on the inner workings of comics. Foer’s novels are neither comic books nor graphic novels but the novels are of a hybrid nature given that the visual parts are an integral component of the textual parts. McCloud’s Understanding Comics (1993) examines the playful interaction of words and pictures in storytelling and concentrates on the reader’s direct involvement in the meaning-making process. McCloud focuses thus on how visual and textual elements are composed and how they are to be read. But, this section on the use and functioning of the visual is a minor element in the analysis which mostly focuses on plot.
In Foer’s Everything is Illuminated character and narrative structure depend on each other in order to achieve fulfilment. This stresses the inter-dependability of each aspect in the narrative. Augustine’s picture not only induces Jonathan’s journey, but ensures personal involvement of both Alex and Grandfather too given that each character is seriously involved in the journey’s development and highly determined to bring the journey to a successful ending. This is mostly due to Grandfather’s traumatic past that prevents him from living in easy sovereignty over himself and which keeps his entire family in a state of immobility. The trauma of war and bloodshed within the Perchov family needs to be overcome (by Grandfather) and become known (by future generations) in order for Grandfather to be liberated and to be able construct a (hopeful) future. The road toward the reversal consists of Grandfather’s confession (i.e. the transference of his trauma) that is supported by the overwhelming power of love that Augustine (who functions as the redeemer) reinserts in his life. Love brings him back into life-giving contact with others. Grandfather’s willingness to be confronted with his trauma portrays his determination to master the past. His attitude shows that he wants to fit the traumatic flashes of the past into a coherent and meaningful narrative.
‘navigated’ the plot structure from beginning to ending. This is recognised by Oskar, who realises that the plot of his life, really, has been structured by mom as she realised from the beginning he could not cope with his loss. Mother saves Oskar. This is exactly what Oskar realises at the novel’s ending, which enables him to pick up his life. Again, it is love that makes the renewal of life possible and that guides the narrative toward rebirth.
This dissertation explores the dynamics of plot in Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels
Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In relation to the functioning of the Rebirth plot structure as Booker describes, this dissertation examines how trauma, a major theme is both novels, is worked through in order to reach a state of renewal, i.e. rebirth. Additionally, this dissertation focuses on the function of the numerous visual images used in Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels and how they serve the narrative’s plot structure. Chapter One provides a historical background to Booker’s theory and presents a theoretical framework. Chapter Two concentrates on Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and examines its plot structure in close detail and, from there, interprets the function of the visual images. Chapter Three explores the plot structure of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that reflects, like Everything is
CHAPTER ONE
Models of Plot
Narratology draws attention to the fundamental building blocks of narrative. Narratologists treat narrative as a “systematic formal construction” and concentrate on the relation of story and plot in narrative discourse in order to identify common and universal aspects in text composition (Abrams 173). The Russian Formalists drew the distinction between “fabula” (story) and “sjužet” (plot) that the French structuralists extended. Vladimir Propp, a Russian Formalist and folklorist, is the key figure in the practice of identifying relational connections and functions on the level of oral and folklore narrative. His work constitutes the foundation of French structuralism and narratology, the literary discipline relevant to this dissertation.
In The Morphology of the Folktale (1928), Vladimir Propp discussed the plot formations and structures underlying Russian folktales: he identified recurring structures and situations in narrative and drew up a typology of narrative structure. Propp concluded that all “tales are constructed by selecting items from a basic repertoire of thirty-one ‘functions’” (Barry 227). Propp’s conclusions drew attention to the universality of recurring patterns in storytelling: the narrow range of functions at work in narratives showed, that within countless stories, narrative patterns were limited. Thus, whereas storylines appear to be infinite, plot structures are not. The functions Propp identified have therefore “a certain archetypal simplicity” (Selden 58). Propp’s functions referred to a particular set of recurring characters and significant actions that formed the basis of narrative that occur in logica; and specific sequences. Propp identified for instance, the recurring presence of the “hero” who, after his reunion with his beloved, marries and ascends the throne; he identified the “villain” who gets, in the end, justly punished. Characters like these are recognised in various genres of writing (comedy, epic, romance) but need considerable elaboration when represented in more complicated texts. Propp’s study has been extended and reworked by other narratologists such as Lévi-Strauss, Greimas and Genette.
Lévi-Strauss and Greimas concentrated on narrative’s logical sequence and the world view it presented.
Gérard Genette, a prominent structuralist critic of literature, explores the structure of narration, linking “the told to … its telling” via a careful analysis of relationships among story, plot and narrating (Brooks 20). These dimensions of narrative are “related by three qualities” … “tense, mood and voice” (Selden 61-2). Genette’s approach to narrative endeavours to extract the commonness and universality of narrative and sets up a play of meaning. In “Structuralism and Literary Criticism” (1982), Genette states that to “travers[e] the substance” of a work is meant “to reach its bone-structure” (70). From the narrative’s most basic structure, Genette’s theory uncovers the connection between form and meaning in order to recognise the relationship between “code and message” at work in literature (67).
The structuralist theorists of narrative conclude that the seemingly different folktales, myths and narratives rely on universal principles for plot structures. This idea of universality underlies Booker’s contemporary descriptions of plot structures; Booker focuses on the recurrence of plot patterns in literature which he elaborates in The Seven Basic Plots: Why We
Tell Stories. According to Booker, the fictional plot reflects universal experiences of human existence and psychology. He presents a significant explanation of the reason of why we tell stories in these seven basic, but complex and apparently universal plot structures. Therefore, Booker links the study to the plot structure in narrative to the study of the functioning of the human mind in psychology. He suggests that the inner universal patterns of the human psyche provide a background for the universal patterns of storytelling which show an archetypal quest for meaning. Jung’s postulation of the “collective unconscious” is Booker’s theoretical backdrop as Jung described the collective unconscious to be a “certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity” (183). Jung’s theory discussed the collective unconscious that is “manifested in the recurrence of certain images, stories, figures, called ‘archetypes’ – the ‘psychic residua of numberless experience of the same type’” (175). Jungian literary criticism regards literature as “an expression of the archetypes of the collective unconscious”, which succeeds in “revitalizing aspects of the psyche which are essential both to individual self-integration and to the mental and emotional well-being of the human race” (Abrams 251). Booker’s insistence on the existence of seven basic plot structures in literature is taken from Jung’s focus on “how we are all psychologically constructed in the same essential way” (Booker 12). When looking for an explanation of the universal presence of particular images, symbols and plots in literary narratives, found in diverse periods of time and cultures, the answer must be found in that what all human beings have in common, which is exactly our collective unconscious – or, “our basic genetic inheritance” (Booker 12).
existence. Therefore, Booker examines seven basic plot structures: “Overcoming the Monster”, “Rags to Riches”, “The Quest”, “Voyage and Return”, “Comedy”, “Tragedy” and “Rebirth”. These are not all selected by Booker: Aristotle already defined Comedy and Tragedy as general “modes of imitation” in his Poetics (Part I). Moreover, Joseph Cambell’s The Hero with a
Thousand Faces (1949) discusses already the Rebirth, Voyage and Return and Overcoming the Monster plot pattern as variations of the Quest. But Booker draws up a universal plot structure from these basic plot patterns – the masterplot. Booker suggests that all seven plots revolve round the same great basic drama. The seven alternatives of plot structures provide seven different perspectives on this basic conflict that reflect the Jungian archetypal idea of the road toward self-realisation and the integration with the matured self. Booker’s masterplot presents the basic plot structure that consists of five stages, whose specifics differ according to the demands of each specific type of plot structure.
Each story starts with an initial phase in which the hero or heroine feels constricted. The tension that arises requires resolution and leads to the action of the story. This is followed by a phase of opening out where the protagonist is far from resolving the feelings of constriction, which culminates into a more severe phase where the presence of the dark power limits the protagonist’s practices. This is followed by a phase where “although the dark power is still dominant, the light elements in the story are preparing for the final confrontation” (228). Eventually, the story’s climax portrays the final confrontation of the light and dark forces, whilst pressure is intensified on each story’s character. Then the moment of reversal and liberation arrives: darkness is overthrown and everything is resolved. According to Booker, the alternation between phases of constriction and liberation determine the narrative’s plot pattern and urge the story to proceed, until its climax is reached, where the dark power is overcome and everything is complete and whole at last.
understanding and unites them with all the world” (Booker 226). An exceptional characteristic of the “Rebirth” plot is the key role it gives to the redeeming character, who brings the protagonist out of the dark into the light, which is, according to Booker, frequently a “Young Woman” or a “Child” (Booker 204). This type counts as the “helper” type in traditional plot theory, but is usually described as the wise, old man there.
Booker’s analysis of the masterplot relies profoundly on the Jungian focus on archetypal patterns underlying stories which reveals its significance in relation to (collective) human experience and psychology. Jung is helpful because he directs his psychological interpretation to the work of art itself. By considering the “basic experience that underlies it [the work of art]” Jung focuses on the “genuine, primordial experience” that is a “true symbolic expression” and which is the “source of … creativeness” and constitutes ultimately a “message to generations of men” (“Psychology and Literature 181-3). The archetype is then viewed as essentially an “element of literary experience” (Fry 365). Archetypes are “predispositions to respond in similar ways to certain stimuli: ‘in reality they belong to the realm of activities of the instincts and in that sense they represent inherited forms of psychic behaviour’” (Guerin 10). This entails that narrative responds to the expectations of the reader, which it can satisfy, disturb or partly.
Another approach to the “Rebirth” plot, which accords with Booker’s theory in this dissertation, is presented by Brooks in Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (1984). Narratologist Brooks uses, like Booker, a psychoanalytic approach to literature in order to examine the plot’s intimate relationship to experiences in human life and psychology. Brooks uses Freud in order to analyse and understand the dynamics of the plot structure, because Freud’s theory presents a “model of psychic processes” that enables the reader to perceive the text itself as “a system of internal energies and tensions, compulsions, resistances and desires” (xiv). The dynamic model he composes provides a way “to think about the movement of plot and its motor force in human desire, its peculiar relation to beginnings and ends” (90). Brooks’ masterplot relates closely to Booker’s “Rebirth” plot pattern and the underlying (universal) significance. Brooks argues that the ultimate goal of the repetition of traumatic events in narrative corresponds to the Freudian analyst-analysand conversation which focuses on ending the trauma’s “reproductive insistence in the present” … “to lead the analysand to understanding that the past is indeed past, and then to incorporate this past, as past, within [the analysand’s] present, so that the life’s story can once again progress” (228). This passage emphasises the functioning of human psychology underlying the narrative’s textual structure and focuses on overcoming past events in order to be able to construct a fruitful future. This process reflects then the psychological road toward rebirth.
equivalences” (90). Thus, Brooks searches an understanding of the dynamics of narrative and goes beyond formalism and structuralism in order to do so; ultimately he wishes to construct a “’textual energetics,’ not an analysis of author or character” with “the help of psychoanalysis” (Rimmon-Kenan 177). Brooks claims that the act of repetition and the pleasure principle – which he considers to be two forward-moving drives in narrative – urge the text to proceed toward its ending. The act of repetition appears “to be initiatory of narrative” (97) and is understood to be “the baseline of plot” (102). Repetition is seen as a movement from passivity to activity, in order to ultimately master a situation to which one was compelled to submit, which connects Brooks’ theory closely to Booker’s theory. Brooks, too, argues that the beginning of a narrative starts from “the moment at which story, or “life,” is stimulated from quiescence into a state of narratability, into a tension, a kind of irritation, which demands narration” which parallels Booker’s assumption concerning the initial phase of the universal plot structure (103). It is exactly the following part in narrative, that “lead[s]” the narrative “back to the goal of quiescence” (Brooks 103). The middle finds itself in a state of tension and functions as a complex postponement of the ending of narrative. It is exactly the act of repetition, “forward and back, advance and return” that creates the middle as a struggle toward the end (Brooks 105). Ultimately, the desire of the text and the desire of the reader is to arrive at a proper (satisfactory) ending that can only be reached through the complex detour of the middle. After all, the narrative finds illumination exactly in its appropriate ending. Thus, while the plot intents to head for the end, this can only be successfully achieved through a meaningful return in the text that results in a satisfying ending. Brooks’ conclusion is that the masterplot as a thread of design and as the “active shaping force” of narrative, is mankind’s “insistence on making meaning in the world” and in “lives” which corresponds closely to Booker’s theory (Brooks 323).
meaningful” (Abbott 195). Thus, through the repetition of events in narrative the reader extracts meaning. The recurrent ideas, images or situations in narrative stress the necessity for interpretation and are useful in order to find out what a novel’s main concern is.
H. Porter Abbott, author of The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, suggests that everything in a text contributes to its “impact and … interpretation”, which implies that every aspect in narrative bears rhetorical power (36). Like Booker and Brooks, Abbott views the masterplot that “comes equipped with types” as a major dynamic and rhetorical device in literature (148). Abbott considers masterplots to be “stories” that are told “over and over in myriad forms” and that “connect vitally with our deepest values, wishes, and fears” (42). The way human beings respond and think about life is connected to particular masterplots that present a “very common way of viewing the universe” (41). Like Booker and Brooks, Abbott recognises the universal aspects of masterplots, but he rejects the implication that these kind of stories are “warehoused in a collective memory that is part of our biological or spiritual inheritance” as Booker argued (43). According to Abbott, the masterplot creates a set of oppositions of good and evil that are easily recognised in the world thanks to the universal social and psychological load. The effectiveness of the masterplot is the “artistic mode and form of entertainment” that additionally stresses the “basic and pervasive way of producing knowledge and social order” (Richardson).
Rhetorical power is also at work in visual images, which is a most important phenomenon in contemporary culture and which is prominently present in Foer’s novels. The 21st century presents a turn toward the visual image, given that postmodern society is dominated by images. Whereas in the 20th century, critics spoke of a “linguistic” turn, in which language took main priority, nowadays visual images have taken over this importance (Mooij 109). The visual provides an image of reality which is more reliable than verbal representation. The rhetorical power of the visual image originates from the unambiguous portrayal of reality and the shocking effect this establishes, which seems to prevail over the fictive imagination. Abbott argues interestingly that “when we look at something as static and completely spatial as a picture, narrative consciousness comes into play” which implies a reading of a visual image (6). Abbott acknowledges the human tendency to “insert narrative time into static, immobile scenes” since the viewer takes great effort to “know not just what is there, but also what happened” (6). The visual is grasped, then, in the context of a story in progress. A baedeker on the use of word and picture combinations is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993), a book of comics theory.
visual, McCloud argues that in “pictures … meaning is fluid and variable” (28). By contrast, in non-pictorial icons (i.e. letters and words) meaning is “fixed” and “absolute” as they “represent invisible ideas” (28). Moreover, pictures deliver their message instantaneous and trigger the interpreter’s imagination. Pictures therefore demand the interpreter’s participation in order to make them work; it is the interpreter’s job “to create and recreate” the visual each “moment by moment” (59). Pictures thus evoke an emotional and sensual response in the viewer due to their “immediate emotional charge” (135).
In order to explore the significance of narrative plot structures, I use Booker’s and Brooks’ theory on plot structure as my theoretical framework. The Rebirth plot pattern as described by Booker provides my approach to Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and Extremely
CHAPTER TWO
The Dynamics of Plot: Everything is Illuminated
Jonathan Safran Foer’s first novel Everything is Illuminated (EiI)1 consists of three different perspectives and styles of writing. The first narrative is told by Alexander Perchov, womaniser and translator, but whose fractured command of English is highly idiosyncratic: “I had performed recklessly well in my second year of English at university. This was a very majestic thing I did because my instructor was having shit between his brains” (EiI 2). Alex, “sired in 1977”, “unequivocally tall” and “handsome hairs, which are split in the middle” records the progression of “a very rigid journey” to Trachimbrod (EiI 1-3). The second narrative is told by Jonathan Safran Foer, “severely short … spectacles and … diminutive hairs” and is a magical narrative concerning his family’s history in an 18th century Ukrainian shtetl (EiI 32). The third narrative concerns Alexander Perchov’s (letter) correspondence with Jonathan Safran Foer after the journey that “reflect[s] on his experiences with Jonathan” (Feuer 27). Alex, a young Ukrainian man living in Odessa, guides the “hero”, the Jewish American Jonathan Safran Foer, on his journey to Trachimbrod, a shtetl erased by a Nazi pogrom in the Second World War (EiI 7). Jonathan Safran Foer – the novel’s main character – presents the fantastical and allegorical history of his family living in Trachimbrod, beginning in 1791 with the miraculous birth of his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Brod and ending in 1942 when his entire family (except grandfather Safran) and almost every citizen of the shtetl is murdered by the Nazis. The letters Alex writes to “Jon-fen” provide insight into Alex’ psyche and portray his moral growth and personal maturation during their correspondence (EiI 32).
Alex’ and Jonathan’s writings are the two central stories of the novel. Alex’ narrative looks back “from the present to the atrocities of the Holocaust” whilst Jonathan’s moves “slowly forward from the birth of Trachimbrod to the present” (Maunsell). About half way through, the narratives cross over and meet in 1942. Thus, the plot plays with narrative time as Alex’ contemporary section narrates from present to the past and Jonathan’s imagined historical part from past to the present (and future as well). Alex’ letter correspondence with Jonathan that is set in the present binds the two main narratives together. Accordingly, as the company’s journey moves simultaneously forward (in time) and backward (in history), the fantastical history moves forward and backward too. The narrative’s nature is thereby based on a “backward-is-forward-is-backward” principle that highlights the necessity of the protagonists to go back into the past in order to move forward in life (Marchand). Going back to the past is an
1
attempt toward recovery in the present in order to be able to construct a fruitful future. Furthermore, the novel depicts the development of three main characters that each have their unique function and share in the progression of the novel’s both physical and psychological journey. By this means, the novel’s power lies in the inter-dependability of each character and narrative structure in that together they reach a state of fulfilment. Therefore, one cannot concentrate solely on the development of a single character or plotline in order to define the “Rebirth” plot pattern that underlies the novel’s narrative structure.
Christopher Booker analyses plot structures in relation to human psychology, which provides a fuller exploration of narrative structure. The “Rebirth” plot he describes contains the protagonist’s crucial psychological transformation in order to overcome the dark power. This journey toward inner growth which works toward a state of complete self-realisation and maturation is seriously tested until the final confrontation draws near. The climax shows that evil forces are overthrown when light overcomes darkness. This thought constitutes the basic thought underlying the human motivation to imagine stories. Eventually, at the story’s end, after a long and painful struggle with the dark power, something of important life-giving value is reached. Examining the plot structure directs the focus therefore to patterns that serve a “far deeper and more significant purpose in our lives” as they shed a light on every facet of human existence: “on pyschology; on morality; on the patterns of history and politics, and the nature of religion; on the underlying pattern and purpose of our individual lives” (Booker 3, 8). Thus, stories present a portrayal of human nature along with the inner dynamics of human behaviour. Brooks’ account accords with Booker’s theory as the former directs his attention to the dynamics of text and focuses on the psychic processes at work in narrative and the equivalences of this in human existence. Brooks argues that the plot structures ends against beginnings and that the plot anticipates the dynamic interconnectedness of the act of repetition and reversal in narrative. Brooks sets out to, like Booker, “consider narrative plots within the larger framework of man’s attempt to make sense of his life” (Rimmon-Kenan 179). Both Booker and Brooks direct their focus to not only “how … we tell ourselves stories, but tell ourselves – and not only to but from others – as stories” which provides a challenging new approach to the literary (master)plot in traditional narrative theory (Stewart 108).
The narrative structure of Everything is Illuminated presents the inward drama that reflects the principles of the “Rebirth” plot structure as described in Booker’s The Seven Basic
grew up, where I would be now if it weren’t for the war” (EiI 59). Moreover, the picture ensures personal involvement of both Grandfather and Alex as it makes the journey important and meaningful to them: “We should try very inflexibly to help him … I would like very much to find Augustine,” he [Grandfather] said. “So would I [Alex]” (EiI 73). Through Augustine’s picture, Grandfather encounters his denial of his personal traumatic past. At the same time, the picture confronts Alex with his ignorance concerning familial and national history. Obviously, Augustine’s picture causes every character to fall under the dark shadow of the Second World War since the picture initiates Jonathan’s journey and the novel’s plunge into a pool of darkness too, as it (re)introduces Grandfather and Alex to horrifying past atrocities. Hereby, the journey becomes a psychological adventure for everyone as historical truths and traumas are revealed and relived.
The trauma’s painful and ubiquitous presence grows more intense the closer the company comes to the centre of hatred, death and destruction, Trachimbrod, which contradicts Booker’s claim that after the protagonist falls under the shadow of a dark force, its threat recedes for a while but approaches again in full force until the protagonist is “seen in the state of living death” (Booker 204). The darkness connected to the Second World War trauma is present from the novel’s very beginning as Grandfather finds himself in a state of living death ever since his best friend’s murder in the Nazi pogrom; the love and responsibility for his son “madeloveimpossible” and prevented life from flowing (EiI 251). This past event affected Grandfather as a young man and greatly influenced his daily practices and behaviour which in turn affected his offspring. Remarkably, Alex thinks of him as “a ghost” – as a deceased person (EiI 68). Thus, as with Jonathan’s Jewish family, the darkness of the past looms over the Perchov family and is ubiquitous throughout the novel, keeping the whole family in a state of immobility. However, the traumatic past that troubles the characters’ minds is depicted as the dark power that they are (now) willing to approach in order to acknowledge and illuminate its existence. As the heroes set out themselves to explore their trauma (the dark force), its power grows more intense the closer the company comes to the centre of their trauma.
acquires his own purpose in the journey. Obviously, Grandfather’s and Alex’ infatuation (or obsession) with Augustine’s picture has drawn them into the grip of the dark power connected to it, which brings about their determination to learn the truth, whereas Jonathan (the journey’s initiator) exclaims: “I don’t want to hear any more” (EiI 186). Eventually, Augustine’s (actually Lista’s) overwhelming love for the preservation of Trachimbrod’s remnants unlocks Grandfather’s mysterious past that releases the latter from “the dark power’s icy grip” and which prepares for “the miraculous redemption” by the return of love (and mercy) in life (Booker 204). Again, it is a picture – obtained from Augustine but picked up by Grandfather – that leads to the succession of events in which Grandfather confesses the traumatic havoc that has captivated his mind for years. Additionally, Grandfather’s confession solves Alex’ uncertainties concerning his familial and historical past which enables him to construct his own (self-accepted) identity that gives him the ability to make important future decisions. Grandfather’s acceptance of the past and Alex’ personal maturation are the result of the life-giving power of love that Augustine reinserts in their lives and which unites them with their deeper inner self. Ultimately, the acceptance and illumination of past atrocities allows the Perchov family members to render themselves free from the isolated and imprisoning grip of the traumatic past on their present-day life.
Booker’s descriptions of archetypal structures underlying literature is reflected in Foer’s
Everything is Illuminated as Jonathan’s little narratives too present the archetypal symbolism underlying the settings and themes that belong to the “Rebirth” plot pattern. The recurrences of symmetrical allegories from Jonathan’s hand occur in different time periods dispersed over two centuries (1791-1943) which parallel the novel’s main story – the company’s journey to Trachimbrod. The tales therefore embody the essential element of traditional plot structure: the overcoming of darkness when light (i.e. love and life) wins the day. This is demonstrated in Brod’s story when she discovers Yankel’s dead body and at the very same time “the Kolker was illuminated at her window by a wink of lightening” who becomes her future loving husband (EiI 205). The Kolker’s death coincides with the birth of their third child when “at the exact moment of the birth – the house was so consumed with new life that no one was aware of new death” (EiI 139). Furthermore, Safran’s tragic story portrays this idea too when at the moment he loses his family, life is not lost. Life continues and thrives as Jonathan’s frequent used sentence and chapter title reveals: “The beginning of the world often comes, 1942-1791” (EiI 267). As the “Rebirth” plot structure is hereby emphasised throughout the novel, this highlights the continuity of human life and existence (as proven during two centuries); death is not death per se as life’s renewal “often comes” (EiI 267).
relief and aggravation, persistence and feebleness. Remarkably, this woman (who carries the same trauma as Grandfather) has the gift to redeem. Augustine confirms Trachimbrod’s past existence and embodies its remnants and memories: “I am it [Trachimbrod]” (EiI 118) (Italics mine). As she claims to be Trachimbrod, she symbolises a knot that connects love and hatred, life’s continuity and death’s irreversibility. Remarkably, this distressed woman brings Grandfather in touch with his deeper Self that enables him to achieve individual wholeness. Despite her deeply worried mind she is capable of complete love which supports Grandfather in identifying his trauma. Her historical knowledge and love assures the shift of feelings of fear and fright to feelings of love and compassion. Moreover, she secures Grandfather’s change of heart. Shortly after their meeting, Grandfather approaches Alex in a different manner: “I [Alex] found it very moving to feel his [Grandfather’s] touch, and to remember that hands can also show love” (EiI 182).
Grandfather is a deformed masculine protagonist, similar to the “strong man” who is “inwardly frozen in an old grievance which hardened his heart” and who ultimately thaws out “into a state of complete love and reconciliation” (Booker 244). The Second World War trauma has dominated his post-war life: he is “in the grip of a power which in some way stunts him and prevents him from living in easy sovereignty over himself” (Booker 261). He represents the masculine hero who is alienated and whose inflexibility keeps him in an egocentric and life-denying grip represented in his “blindness” (having lost the ability to see whole). His wife’s death worsened his behaviour; Alex’ confesses that “[H]e [Grandfather] did not have the unappetizing habit of yelling at Little Igor and me before Grandmother died” (EiI 5). Her death cut the last string to the past and alienated him from his offspring. He becomes thereby an aggressive and oppressive man: “he is a first-rate puncher” Alex states. Grandfather, “represents the fully-developed masculine values” and symbolises the ruling or dominant order (Booker 280): “Grandfather punched the table with much violence and shouted, “Do not forget who is who!”” (EiI 6). However, Grandfather’s behaviour is not inherent to his true nature – he has lost connection with it. He has become the “Dark Father” or “Tyrant” due to his undeniably atrocious past and wife’s unfortunate death, but which is restored to him by Augustine who brings Grandfather back in touch with his past that paves the way for renewal, i.e. rebirth.
Alex is united with his inner Self, learns his purpose in life and grows into a more mature human being. His psychological development toward self-realisation is challenged by the negative qualities found in Grandfather’s character and history that he surmounts in order to construct a positive counterpart. The letter correspondence with Jonathan portrays Alex’ growth as a writer and presents his need for reinvention of himself as also his life. Therefore, Alex gradually uncovers his superficial imago: “I do not go to a famous nightclub … I do not love
inner self results in the narrative’s ultimate resolution which unites “power, order, feeling and awareness” (Booker 305). This is “the point of perfect unity, with no trace of division or egotism” which is symbolised in Alex’ replacement as man of the house (Booker 305). By ending the downward spiral of vulgar language, violence and cruelty in the Perchov residence, Alex’ replacement promises a hopeful future. Grandfather demands Alex to construct his own life: “[T]ry to live so that you can always tell the truth” (EiI 275). This life-renewing goal Alex heads for – the illumination of past events in the present and future – is prepared by Augustine, whose love ensures Alex’ transcendence over the ego. Previously, Alex focused mainly on his individual desire for Western lifestyle and flamboyancy. Alex has found peace with his inner Self and accepts who he is and who he is expected to be, which enables him to welcome his purpose in life: Alex realises that “I [Alex] will never see America, and neither will Little Igor, and I understand that now” (EiI 241, Italics mine).
Brooks’ theory of repetition and reversal in narrative highlights the “textual energetics” (i.e. the dynamics of text) and reveals therefore the text’s psychic processes and its equivalences in human life (Rimmon-Kenan 177). Jonathan’s desire to explore his family’s history pulls the narrative “from quiescence into a state of narratability” and initiates the commencement of action and transformation which constitutes the text’s beginning (Brooks 103). Remarkably, from the novel’s very beginning, Grandfather knows precisely what journey he embarks on when he repeats after his son (Alex’ father): ““Trachimbrod?”” (EiI 7). The announcement upsets him – “I do not want to drive ten hours to an ugly city to attend to a very spoiled Jew” – although, it does not prevent him from participating (EiI 7). Additionally, when Grandfather discovers they are heading for Kolki, he asks: ““Kolki?”” (EiI 62). This message however, reveals his determination to accomplish the journey: while “scrutiniz[ing] at the photograph” he states ““[w]e will find her”” (EiI 62). These quotations depict Grandfather’s willpower to repeat “unpleasurable experiences” from the past as he clearly knows what he will be facing in the near future, in Trachimbrod (Brooks 99). Therefore, Grandfather exposes a “need to repeat … the repressed material from the past” as probably, he is ready to “reproduce and to “work through” painful material” (i.e. his trauma) (Brooks 98).
Grandfather from his repose … “Anna?” he asked” (EiI 34). As the journey progresses he dreams again: ““Grandfather,” I said, touching his arm. “Grandfather. It is me, Sasha.” “I was dreaming,” he said” (EiI 114). The third occasion Grandfather dreams – “He moved his hands across his eyes. “Augustine?” he asked, and it appeared as if he could not be certain if he was still in dreams” – portrays his obsession with Augustine, since he dreams remarkably not of his late wife, but of Augustine, who indisputably occupies his troubled mind (EiI 146). Afterwards, Grandfather mentions three times “Augustine?”, as he cannot (and will not) believe she is not the woman they are looking for (EiI 150-2). Furthermore, Grandfather sets out willingly and consciously to approach the centre of pain and darkness: “We have come to see Trachimbrod,” Grandfather said, “and you will take us to Trachimbrod” (EiI 155). And again, he insists that “[s]he [Augustine] is going to take us to Trachimbrod” while he knows what will be unraveled at this place of annihilation (EiI 160). Grandfather demands Augustine repeatedly to “[T]ell him [Alex]” … “Tell him what happened,” he said. “I do not know everything” … “Please” … “Please” (EiI 184). Grandfather perseveres: “Tell him,” he said. “Tell him what happened” (EiI 185). These aspects clearly demonstrate Grandfather’s insistence on being confronted with the truth. Furthermore, they reveal both his readiness and willingness to master the past, as he turns his passivity in dealing with his traumatic past in post-war life into an active re-experiencing of past events in order to be able to claim mastery and control over what he has been submitted to for years.
But, Grandfather’s personal history needs to be unravelled too in order to reach a satisfying ending that first enables Grandfather to “incorporate the past as past within the present” and second shows the interconnectedness (and completeness) of text in relation to previously provided clues and flashforwards (Brooks 228). Accordingly, Grandfather’s “overture to illumination” presents the analyst-analysand interaction (as in Freudian analysis) when Alex ‘interrogates’ his Grandfather about his presence on the yellowed photograph he picked up from a box named “IN CASE”, which visualises a question-and-answer model of (psychoanalytic) dialogue:
“Tell me more,” I [Alex] said. “More?”
“Herschel.”
“It was as if he was in our family.”
“Tell me what happened. What happened to him?” (EiI 245)
(Brooks 103). The “unnarratable” that constitutes the “ensuing narrative … a prolonged deviance” is portrayed with emphasis on the written word (Brooks 103). When Grandfather confesses Herschel’s mysterious death, the text underlines that this part is transmitted in the text itself as written word as the truth is too horrifying to bear: “Jonathan opened his diary and commenced to write. He wrote every word that was spoken. Here is what he wrote:” (EiI 228).
The transference of Grandfather’s trauma is strengthened by the visualisation of the written word that is reflected in Alex’ automatic writing which provides a view on “the actual functioning of thought” reproduced in text (Breton). Throughout the novel, Alex’ stream of thought is presented in (repetitive) dialogues without punctuation marks and break lines that heightens the importance and sadness of words and sentences as he deliberately draws attention to text itself. Besides, leaving out word spaces breaks word grammar (and sentence structure) and symbolises the escape from “control by the conscious, purposive mind” (Abrams 168): “… I am so afraid of dying I am soafraidofdying Iamsoafraidofdying …” (EiI 250). The psychological display of conscious and unconscious treatment of past trauma is then reflected in the text’s powerful word creativity. Additionally, as specific words are too intense and weighty to speak, jumbling them together (as if inventing new words) becomes a more comfortable manner to narrate the unnarratable (i.e. the unspeakable): “the General shothiminthehead” (EiI 250). The novel becomes verbally graphic. As a result, the text demands an active role of the reader as he is directed to particular (appalling) parts of text in order to reconsider the Nazi destruction.
Jonathan’s narrative – which is overwhelmed with visual elements – goes beyond the written word, when, at the moment of total destruction, Jonathan chooses full stops over words in order to stress loss and death: “This was imminent death … She threw them high into the air………..” (EiI 270-1). This passage triggers the reader’s imagination since the effect of the visual is its “immediate emotional charge” as McCloud argues (135). The representation of emptiness in this passage illustrates the emptiness of that particular moment in time which is literally inexpressible. Passages like these that rely on visual elements in which meaning is fluid are therefore dependent on the reader’s active role in the meaning-making process. The reader needs to “create and recreate” the visual “each moment by moment” (McCloud 59). This passage stresses the passing of time in which the Trachimbrod citizens prepare (and still hope to be able) to flee the shtetl. At the very same time, the truth seems to be exactly in the full stops; this passage emphasises the full stop (the end) of Trachimbrod’s existence. Here in particular the overwhelming sensation of emotions and the representation of emptiness stress the loss of a life time in fact, stress the total annihilation of an era. The visual parts are inherent to the narrative structure and meaning as they carry undeniable importance in the novel’s sense-making process to both reader and text. The graphic details in Everything is
The next chapter focuses on Jonathan Safran Foer’s second novel Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close. Again, the theme of trauma is explored in relation to the plot’s dynamics.
CHAPTER THREE
The Dynamics of Plot: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
“And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook / With the photographs there and the moss” (Leonard Cohen)
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close2, like Everything is Illuminated consists of multiple perspectives, voices and styles of writing. The main narrative concerns Oskar Schell – an “INVENTOR, JEWELRY DESIGNER, JEWELRY FABRICATOR, FRANCOPHILE …
PACIFIST” (ELIC 99) – and his quest through New York’s five boroughs after his father’s death in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Oskar is in search of the lock that belongs to the key that, as he discovers, must be in the possession of someone named Black: ““Black was written by Black! I need to find Black!”” (ELIC 46). The second storyline is composed of letters written by grandfather (Thomas Schell Sr.) addressed to the son he abandoned and depicts his traumatic youth in World War II Dresden and his post-war (silent) life in America: “To my unborn child: I haven’t always been silent, I used to talk and talk and talk and talk … the silence overtook me like a cancer” (ELIC 16). Grandmother’s letters make up the third storyline and are directed to Oskar, her grandson, which uncover (like grandfather’s letters) her childhood in Dresden and her complicated and painful relationship with grandfather in her afterlife: “I want to tell you [Oskar] everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?” (ELIC 75). Grandmother’s chapters are titled “MY FEELINGS” and are recognisable by the large white spaces between sentences and paragraphs. Grandfather’s chapters, titled “WHY I’M NOT WHERE YOU ARE”, are noticeable for the dense and long paragraphs that are interrupted by numerous pictures of doorknobs. Oskar’s narrative is composed of handwritten pages, personal cards, letters, passages written in capital letters and photographs “of stars and jewels and keys and Manhattan windows and fingerprints and the backs of heads … and turtles mating … and, lifted from a Portuguese site on the Internet, a blurred body falling from one of the World Trade Center towers” (Updike). Oskar’s narrative presents and mimics his very own scrapbook named “Stuff That Happened to Me” (ELIC 42). Taken altogether, the three narrative structures move forward in an alternating pattern and portray the human urge to put into words (and pictures) a survivor story – a traumatic story of losing one’s most beloved person.
2
A remarkable aspect of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the absence of concrete evil power that increasingly affects and pressures the protagonists during the course of the novel. As each storyline is set in the aftermath of a traumatic event – 9/11 and the Dresden firebombings – the dark power connected to these events serves primarily as the novel’s background. Both traumatic events are perceptible throughout the novel and function as the central source of evil but are only marginally touched upon. Because the novel concentrates not on the painful presence of the dark power, but on its painful outcome, which is the death of a beloved one, the “death” of the survivor in the afterlife, which is trauma; grandfather explains that “it’s a tragedy we get to live only one life, because if I’d had two lives … I would have spent that life among the living … I can’t live, I’ve tried and I can’t” (ELIC 133-5). Extremely
Loud and Incredibly Close reflects the Rebirth plot pattern Booker describes since the protagonists need to overcome a trauma and have to go through a psychological transformation in order to overcome their state of living death. Thus, as in Everything is Illuminated, the dark power the protagonists face is an internal evil force: the dark power is their trauma.
Oskar’s narrative starts in medias res as the plot begins at a most crucial point and directs the narrative straight to the heart of the story; this challenges Booker’s statement that the “initial phase” of a narrative sets up the “tension requiring resolution” that “leads to the action of the story” (228). This gradual build-up of events is passed over as the shocking reality of the 9/11 events is presented immediately at the novel’s beginning. The novel opens with Oskar’s compulsive habit of inventing bizarre artefacts whilst heading for his father’s funeral (which suppresses his obsessive tendency to reinvent his father’s death and which reveals, too, his traumatised state of being): “What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me?” (ELIC 1). From the novel’s beginning, or actually, even before its beginning, the dark power (only once directly referred to in Mr. Black’s biographical index: “MOHAMMED ATTA: WAR” (ELIC 159)) has already completed its mission and has triumphed – father is dead – which leaves Oskar disillusioned and highly traumatised.
Oskar’s discovery of a “fat and short key, in a little envelope, in a blue vase, on the highest shelf in his [father’s] closet” reinforces tension in the narrative (ELIC 37). The key pulls the narrative into narration as it induces Oskar’s quest which becomes his “ultimate raison
Oskar finds himself in a “state of living death” which needs to be resolved and which constitutes the “story’s main action” (Booker 194, 218). In Booker’s theoretical model Oskar lives in a state of total isolation after his father’s death: “I [Oskar] was in the middle of a huge black ocean, or in deep space … everything was incredibly far away from me” (ELIC 36). Oskar’s trauma dominates and shapes his life that stunts him and prevents him from living in easy sovereignty over himself which is illustrated by Oskar wearing heavy boots, neurotically playing the tambourine (reminding himself that he is still there) and bruising himself all over his body (which echoes his inner psychological suffering). Somehow, Oskar forces himself (consciously) to hold back from the flow of every day life and accuses his mom for trying to get on with her life – which he feels is inappropriate. Thereby, he cruelly informs her that “[I]f I [Oskar] could have chosen, I would have chosen you!” (ELIC 171). This quotation demonstrates Oskar’s inability to see whole; Oskar passes to some extent in what Booker terms a “grip of egocentric obsession” in the sense that he focuses solely on his own process of mourning and recovery (but note: he is a child) (203). The key, which he takes for a clue (as he needs to find meaning in his father’s death) triggers his excitement to set out on a quest that (he thinks) will unravels the key’s purpose. Therefore, Oskar falls, in a way, under the spell of the key (a spell he himself invents, since the key bears no particular significance) and not under, what Booker calls the “shadow of the dark power” (204). The quest symbolises then a search for answers, a search for recovery and happiness. Oskar, overly self-conscious, acknowledges this, when he wonders if what he “was really doing was trying to get rid of things” (ELIC 11). This highlights his attempt to be rid of his feelings of fear and guilt connected to his father’s death, which are fuelled by the presence of the family’s answering machine that Oskar hides in “the closet under lots of junk” and which constitutes “the hole in the middle of [Oskar] that every happy thing fell into” (ELIC 69, 71). The “hole in the middle” of Oskar symbolises the emptiness he feels after his father’s death – the “hole” represents his trauma that prevents him from going on with his life (the “hole”, the emptiness is also echoed in Oskar’s surname, “Schell”). The flow of Oskar’s life is thus frozen in suspension that demands resolution.
mine). These aspects echo Oskar’s state of being and he (Oskar) states too that “I’m gonna bury my feelings deep inside me” (ELIC 203, Italics mine). Grandfather’s life is therefore also “frozen in suspension” (Booker 193).
Grandfather’s life story parallels Oskar’s life story. Their ultimate (and satisfying) resolution, their “simple solution” to an “impossible” (but shared) “problem” (ELIC 321) is digging up father’s empty coffin, which constructs the novel’s climax and paves the way for the reversal. Father’s empty grave is the centre of both protagonists’ sadness, connects generations, and functions to fulfil both protagonists’ (individual) desires to attempt to overcome their grief. Grandfather is finally able to bring his letters (that he never sent) to his child – “I needed to get them [the letters] to you [Thomas Jr.], to my child” (ELIC 287) – whilst this act learns Oskar to come to accept the truth that “he [father] is dead” (ELIC 322). Oskar and grandfather thus work together toward the grande finale in which they overcome their trauma by reaching a state of acceptance. In Booker’s terms, Oskar “‘see[s] the light’ in a way which transforms” his attitude that brings him back into “life-giving contact with others” (223-4). He realises that mom enabled him to make his confession at the end of his search that allowed him to overcome his grief: “My search was a play that Mom had written, and she knew the ending when I was at the beginning” (ELIC 292). In the end, he understands that he is saved by the life-giving power of his mother’s love: “In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son” (ELIC 324). In the beginning Oskar seemed to become estranged from his mother, when he set out on a quest in order to come closer to his father by discovering every tiny detail about him. Paradoxically, the quest brings him closer to his mother instead. In the end Oskar reveals his inner transformation that typifies the Rebirth plot essence, when he tells his mom that, this time, “[i]t’s OK if you fall in love again … I want you to” (ELIC 325).
and Incredibly Close is a dynamic process toward the renewal of life as this is reflected and brought to light in every part of the novel, in each character and each action, which is, for instance, also illustrated by Mr. Black, who ends his adventure with Oskar by saying: “I think I’m finished … You got me back into the world … That’s the greatest thing anyone could have done for me” (ELIC 254) (Italics mine).
The state of totalisation is achieved through the “chain of metonymies”, the “clues” that underlie the intentionality of the action(s) in the novel, which are demonstrated in Oskar’s narrative as each aspect of the quest adds up to his gradual growth toward a “mastery” of traumatic past events (Brooks 94, 98). In order to master traumatic events, the protagonist needs to move from a passive to an active role in order to ultimately control a situation to where he was supposed to submit – and, “repetition is mastery” claims Brooks (98). Remarkably, Oskar’s habit to repeat obsessively unpleasant thoughts concerning his father’s death is suppressed by his compulsive behaviour to invent surreal artefacts. His “desire” is therefore “to stop inventing” (ELIC 257) which becomes “the motor” of the “narrative”, the “dynamic principle” that triggers the movement toward totalisation (“Freud’s Masterplot” 281). Oskar’s compulsive behaviour then uncovers his urge to “reproduce and to work through” painful past events and triggers him to set out on his quest (Brooks 98). Remarkably, the search he starts is a repetition of an game he played with father, named “Reconnaissance Expedition”: “I spent all day walking around the park, looking for something that might tell me something, but the problem was that I didn’t know what I was looking for” (ELIC 8). This quotation echoes Oskar’s quest that is triggered by the key (which he takes for a clue – he is a child) after dad’s death: “I’d been looking for so long without finding anything, but I no longer felt like I was moving in the direction of Dad. I’m not even sure I believed in the lock anymore” (ELIC 287). Another aspect of the game-playing with father that echoes later events in the novel, is father’s statement that: “Another way of looking at it would be, how could you ever be wrong?” (ELIC 9). This implies that Oskar’s quest, although fruitless, cannot be something that is totally absurd or incorrect to set out to do.
resolution is not digging up father’s grave with his grandfather (although for him it is), but the reversal of the visual images of the falling body (for Oskar – the main protagonist). The reversal of the visual images brings the novel to an illuminative ending as this act confirms and repeats (visually), once more, the novel’s central metaphor of rebirth.
The visual images in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close form a substantial part of the novel and represent the psychological processes of transference of both Oskar’s and grandfather’s trauma. As Oskar’s narrative is adorned with visual images that mimic his scrapbook Stuff That Happened to Me, the reader is enabled to see and take in what Oskar sees and takes in. Thus, the reader becomes personally involved in Oskar’s search. For instance, the picture with the numerous keys predicts that Oskar’s quest might become a highly unfeasible mission (ELIC 53). Moreover, the photographs made in the art supply store set the reader out on a quest: by flipping back and forth between pages, inspecting them from various angles, the reader, too, hopes to discover a clue (ELIC 45, 47-9, 63). This practice heightens tension in the reading process as the reader joins Oskar on his quest and is thereby confronted with images that show (the shocking) reality that is unmediated by words. The reader needs to “create and recreate” the visual each “moment by moment (McCloud 59). This implies that the visual lends itself to diverse interpretations, none of which can be entirely incorrect as the process relies on the imaginative capacity of the reader (which recalls father’s statement: “how could you ever be wrong?” (ELIC 9)). This parallels Abbott’s statement that “narrative consciousness comes into play” when looking at something “static and completely spatial as a picture” (6). The idea that the reader wants to find out “not just what is there”, not just what is presented, but “also what happened” is clearly illustrated by Oskar’s pictures (Abbott 6). The picture is thus understood in the context of a story in progress, as the reader desires to explore what the picture symbolises.
CONCLUSION
Why do people tell stories? Why do people feel the urge to organise events and experiences in narrative form? Both Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close portray the human tendency to put in words and pictures a survivor story. Each protagonist demonstrates the urge for storytelling. In Everything is Illuminated, both Alex and Jonathan use their writing as a means of structuring events and experiences into narrative sequences. Jonathan’s magical writing of Trachimbrod’s horrendous downfall in 1942 presents a strong longing for preservation and coherence. After the first Nazi bombings, the villagers use memory to remember the past but struggle “in vain to remember a beginning or end” (EiI 258). The villagers desperately attempt to make sense out of memories. Jonathan’s grandfather Safran obviously demonstrates the desire for coherence: “Safran lay in bed trying to string the events of his seventeen years into a coherent narrative, something that he could understand, with an order of imagery, an intelligibility of symbolism” (EiI 260). The protagonists of Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close, too, portray the apparent human necessity for narrative coherence. After his father’s death, Oskar wonders why he “started writing letters after Dad died” (ELIC 296). Oskar’s paternal grandparents write their life stories too, grandmother writes: “I want to tell you everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?” (ELIC 75). Oskar’s grandfather writes obsessively which illustrates his will to document his life and his desire to explain himself.
The process of storytelling seems to be innate to human nature which reminds of Noam Chomsky’s, an American linguist and philosopher, arguments on language (and other systems of knowledge) that he considers to be “largely innately determined” (Stark). Jerome S. Bruner, an American psychologist, states that human beings try to find meaning in life through the narrative mode. The narrative mode directs attention to human “narrative, descriptive and contemplative thinking” (Olson). Bruner claims that the narrative mode presents a framework for interpretation and representation of experiences. Narrative is then concerned with the human inclination of constructing meaning out of events and experiences (along with the consequences).
The nature of storytelling is also addressed by Booker in The Seven Basic Plots: Why
formulas stored in our memory that quickly fill in certain elements of the story” of which Abbott speaks (7). Through archetypes, people expect narratives to take particular directions; for instance, in the end, the villain must be rightfully punished and the hero must be victorious. These are concepts that enable the reader to construct meaning out of narrative that is guided by universal human morality, given that it is commonly expected that goodness triumphs over badness. Or, in Booker’s words, the fundamental impulse underlying the human urge for storytelling is to show how, in the end, “light overcomes the darkness” (227).
This most basic impulse underlies the Rebirth plot description that I have used as my main entry into Foer’s fiction. But, in order to analyse how the plot structure reflects psychological functioning of the human mind, through the act of repetition and reversal in order to work toward a satisfying closure, I have concentrated on Brooks’ approach. Both Booker and Brooks have proven useful for exploring narrative text composition: to come to understand how the narrative is set up, how it develops and how it gradually works toward the ultimate climax and resolution. Both Booker and Brooks propose a masterplot that supports the protagonists in their positive recovery from traumatic past events that paves the way for life’s renewal. Booker’s notion of the Rebirth plot focuses on the internal psychological transformation of protagonists in order to overcome the dark power. Brooks’ theoretical account of plot emphasises the act of repetition and reversal that reorganise the narrative and arrive at a meaningful ending. This approach is useful in the sense that it presents a less concrete view of the dark power than Booker proposes (who speaks mostly in terms of monsters). The psychoanalytic theory Brooks uses presents a more abstract idea of the dark threat (trauma) that prevents life’s continuation.
