Unfolding Trauma through Narration: An Analysis of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Abstract

Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close uses unusual
typographic and visual devices; such narrative strategies, together with the specific use
of language strongly influence the pace of the story as well as the core of the novel. In
this novel the reader follows three different timelines and three different narrative
voices. One takes place in New York in 2003, the next one is also set in New York City
but the time is 1962/63, and the last one takes place in Dresden during the Second
World War. In this study, the language of each protagonist is analysed in detail as well
as the pace and the chronology of their narrations. This study aims to analyse the
narrative techniques in Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly
Close with an emphasis on visual techniques. It will analyse the methods of their
employment and depict their role in the novel. Study focuses on the visual use of
graphic representations in the narrative as a means to visualise meaning and how it
captures the trauma of the nine year old boy Oskar Schell, his Grandma and that of
Thomas Sr.