Autism in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Essay 4 PDF

Preview

Summary

This was my essay about autism in the book "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer....

Description

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

1

Autism in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Amanda Scheuer Rutgers University

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

2

 titled Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close features a nine Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel year old boy named Oskar Schell whose father passed away in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Oskar details his life one year later, after he finds a vase with a key inside in his father’s closet. The key was inside an envelope labelled, “Black,” so he begins a journey to solve the mystery of who the key belongs to and how they knew his father. He thus travels around New York, knocking on the doors of strangers with the last name Black in order to find answers to his questions and find a way to be close to his father again. While reading the novel, it becomes clear very early on that Oskar is not the typical nine year old boy; he has some quirks that are too significant to ignore. Most noticeably, he is extremely intelligent for his age and yet he lacks the social cues that a nine year old is expected to understand. In addition, he doesn’t show that he truly understands others’ emotions, but he says that he feels depressed on a regular basis. He refers to his sadness as having “heavy boots,” and bruises himself when he cannot cope with his emotions. Oskar also has some obsessive tendencies that often relate to sensory processing issues; he even carries a tambourine around with him because shaking it calms him down. Oskar’s high intelligence, sensitivity to sensory experiences, deficit in emotional understanding, deliberate self harm, and inadequate understanding of social cues are indicative of his autistic spectrum disorder. Furthermore, many of his symptoms can also be partly explained by the trauma of losing his father; therefore, it is possible that some of Oskar’s behavior can be attributed to post traumatic stress disorder. There is much speculation about whether or not Oskar truly has an autism spectrum disorder, and although it is never mentioned in the novel, many believe that he has Asperger’s syndrome, particularly because of his high level of intelligence. In the film adaptation of this

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

3

novel, Oskar tells a woman he meets named Abby Black, “People tell me I’m very odd all the time. I got tested once to see if I had Asperger’s disease. Dad said it’s for people who are smarter than everybody else, but can’t run straight. Tests weren’t definitive.” This is interesting because it shows that his parents were concerned with some of his behaviors enough to get a psychological evaluation when he was younger. Even though the test wasn’t definitive, he demonstrates many of the symptoms that go hand in hand with autism spectrum disorder. For instance, children with high functioning autism spectrum disorder often have a “precocious, ‘know-it-all’” nature (Weis, 173). Oskar seems more knowledgeable than other children his age, and he shows this in his perceptive, logical way of speaking. Not to mention, he has certain other language characteristics that are typical of children with high functioning ASD. He often “talks in monologues, comments on own actions, or talks to self,” he uses “pedantic or long-winded speech” and speaks with “verbosity,” and he frequently exhibits “obsessive questioning...debates,” and using “unusual words or phrases” (Weis, 173). These language characteristics may not be out of the ordinary for some neurotypical children, but Oskar is on the extreme end of them, and he also shows other evidence of having autism spectrum disorder. Throughout the novel, Oskar spends many sleepless nights lying awake asking himself questions, inventing things, and thinking about his father. He finds it hard to concentrate and calm down because of the kind of sensory overload that comes from thoughts running through his mind. According to Caroline Eggerding at WebMD, “children with autism spectrum disorder appear to have more ongoing sleep-related difficulties,” which are often caused by behavioral issues as well as sensitivity to sensory experiences (Eggerding, 2010). Just before he finds the vase with the key, Oskar goes into his father’s closet for the first time since he died, and he

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

4

touches all of his father’s belongings. He says, “The average person falls asleep in seven minutes, but I couldn't sleep, not after hours, and it made my boots lighter to be around his things, and to touch stuff that he had touched, and to make the hangers hang a little straighter, even though I knew it didn't matter” (Foer, 36). This also demonstrates some of his obsessive tendencies, which is indicative of autism spectrum disorder. Some other examples of his repetitive, obsessive habits include Oskar only wearing white clothes, shaking his tambourine to ease his anxiety, and extensively planning out everything he does, right down to his search for where the key goes. He also has certain rules and routines that he follows every day, and if those are interfered with, he becomes stressed. This is significant to his ASD because autistic children often maintain an, “insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior” (168). Even though Oskar never received an actual diagnosis, much of his behavior points to signs that he should have been diagnosed with high-functioning autism. It is also important to note that some symptoms of PTSD include “persistent negative emotional state...problems with concentration...sleep disturbance” (Weis, 419). The trauma of losing his father was certainly enough to exacerbate these symptoms, but his flashbacks prove that most of them had already existed. Oskar’s inability to fall asleep and his obsessive behaviors are most likely due to his autism spectrum disorder, but they may also be worsened by PTSD after his father’s death. Oskar has many intense emotions, and he writes about how he is feeling often, but for most of the novel he displays a lack of understanding others’ emotions. Autism spectrum disorder is partly defined by, “deficits in social-emotional reciprocity…[and] difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts” (Weis, 168). In addition, it is often said that

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

5

children with autism are “mind-blind” in that they are unable to infer the mental states of others, and thus unable to respond to specific situations in the appropriate way (Weis, 187). Oskar is not necessarily mind-blind, nor does he completely lack empathy, but his mind is often concerned with millions of other things that prevent him from responding appropriately. For example, Oskar decides that he does not want to be buried underground, and he argues with his mother that his father wasn’t buried because his father’s body was never found. He tells her, “It’s just an empty box,” and that it was ridiculous to bury him if his body was not in the coffin. His mother responds with, “His spirit is there,” but Oskar gets angry when she says this because he finds it illogical. So he states, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!" (Foer, 169) Oskar is missing his father, and he cannot cope with this in an appropriate way, so he ignores his mother’s sadness about his father’s death and angrily screams at her instead. Not to mention, he often has to ask people why they are feeling a certain way, even if their emotions would be easy to read for a typical nine year old. Oskar’s inability to fully understand other people’s emotions reflects the difficulties that many autistic children have regarding empathy, which is another key aspect of his ASD. It is very common for autistic children to injure themselves, and Oskar is no exception. At the beginning of his search for who the key belongs to, he hits a roadblock when one of the people named Black doesn’t answer. He writes, “I sat back down and started to cry in the lobby of an apartment building in Corona. I wanted to press all of the buttons and scream curse words at everybody who lived in the stupid building. I wanted to give myself bruises” (Foer, 88). He was feeling lost in his journey to get closer to his father, and the stress of all the new experiences

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

6

was too much for him to handle. According to Autism Speaks, one common challenge that children with ASD face is that “frustration can also result in self-injurious behaviors such as head banging, hair pulling, or self-biting.” Oskar is clearly feeling frustrated that he can’t get any answers to where this key came from, and he feels that bruising himself is the one way he can cope. There are many times in which he will tell the reader that he bruised himself or otherwise hurt himself, but he never tells his mother. She eventually finds out when she sees the bruises on his stomach, and it appears that Oskar is really looking for some help. He says, “I guess I fell asleep on the floor. When I woke up, mom was pulling my shirt off to help me get into my PJs, which means she must have seen all of my bruises. I counted them last night in the mirror and there were forty-one...I want her to ask me how I got them...and to feel sorry for me” (Foer, 57). He does not know how to cope with his frustrations, his sadness, or his senses, and this is a significant problem for him. The fact that Oskar repeatedly injures himself when he feels frustrated, or even when he feels overloaded with sensory information, certainly points to an autism spectrum disorder. There are many times throughout Oskar’s journey in which he shows an inadequate understanding of social cues; he meets with many people and has a difficult time conversing appropriately with a lot of them. One diagnostic requirement for autism spectrum disorder is a deficit in “the normal back-and-forth of conversation and social interactions through the sharing of interests, affect, or emotions” (Weis, 169). Even before his father’s death, it is clear that Oskar displayed a lack of understanding social cues and relationships. Even conversations with his mother and father seemed to be lacking in the typical dialogue between parents and children. His social interactions are noticeably abnormal each time he meets with a new person named Black

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

7

on his expedition. When Oskar first meets Abby Black for instance, he writes, “Our faces were incredibly close…and I could feel the breath of her words against my face. I asked her, ‘Could we kiss for a little bit?’” (Foer, 99). It is not clear to him that this is incredibly inappropriate, but Abby recognizes that there is something unordinary about him, and she simply tells him that it isn’t a good idea. Although this would seem like a normal response to a typical nine year old, Oskar continues to ask why she wouldn’t accept his request. Even after Abby tells him that she is too old to kiss someone his age, she is married, and she doesn’t know him well enough, he doesn’t understand why it was an improper thing to say. This inability to respond appropriately in typical social situations is yet another indication of Oskar being on the spectrum. Jonathan Safran Foer writes about Oskar Schell’s quest through post 9/11 New York in the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, in which he tries to find the owner to a key and attempts to stop missing his father. Based on Oskar’s behavior, it is likely that he has autism spectrum disorder as well as post traumatic stress disorder after the death of his father. He has very high intelligence, sensory processing issues which cause insomnia, an inadequate understanding of others’ emotions, self-injurious behavior, and a lack of social cues. These signs all suggest that he has autism spectrum disorder, despite the novel never mentioning a diagnosis. The trauma of losing his father just a year before was enough to worsen his already present symptoms, but PTSD is not the only challenge that Oskar faces. He has many difficulties over his expedition that his father once helped him through, but he was no longer there to help him cope. In the end, regardless of the fact that he didn’t get what he wanted out of finding the owner of the key, he and his mother have a better understanding of each other and of how to help Oskar through those difficulties.

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

8

AUTISM / EXTREMELY LOUD

9

Works Cited

Eggerding, C., MD. (2010). Sleep Problems in Autistic Children: Strategies for Parents. Retrieved November 28, 2016, from http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/features/sleep-difficulties-parents-autism#1 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. (2016, November 3). Retrieved November 27, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Loud_and_Incredibly_Close Symptoms | What is Autism? | Autism Speaks. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2016, from https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/symptoms Weis, R. (2014). Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications....