When Everything Seems to Come Together

In the section that we had to read for yesterday's literature circle, everything seemed to come together for the first time. We had a lot to read, and even more to discuss in our literature circle. As usual, we worked very well together and stayed on task, but this time we almost needed more time because we had so much that we wanted to share with each other.

First, Tara shared the topics that she chose to write about in her response, one of which was a topic that we had previously explored. She brought up the idea once again that Oskar showed signs of someone who is autistic, which I had proposed a couple of weeks ago. I agreed with Tara about the fact that there were more signs in this section of the reading to suggest some type of autism in Oskar. Tara shared a quote in which Oskar said that most of his classmates had ADD, which could suggest that he goes to some type of special school or class, and she also pointed out that he does not know when to stop, which is another characteristic that is common among people with autism. I also added that the psychologist wanted to hospitalize Oskar, which may or may not have something to do with the traits previously discussed.

Allison brought up two interesting points in this literature circle. The first was that Oskar's mother saw his bruises, but never said anything about it. I hadn't noticed this when I was reading, but as I thought about is more, it became more peculiar. If she saw all of the bruises on his body that he did to himself, why wouldn't she do anything to help him? The second point that Allison brought up was that when Oskar's grandfather was observing Oskar in the apartment, he was watching him though a keyhole, which could be symbolic of the key that Oskar carries around. On the same note, we all thought it was somewhat cliche but still interesting that Oskar had a Band-Aid over his heart where the key rested because it is symbolic of the wounds that he has.

Our group spent a lot of time closely reading the letter on page 208 to page 216 that Oskar's grandfather wrote to his son, who is Oskar's father. Oskar's father went through the letter and circled the mistakes with his red pen. Alex thought it was strange that he would mark up the only letter that he ever received from his father, ruining it in a sense. We discussed the different words or phrases that were circled with the red pen, especially those that weren't just grammar mistakes. From some of the phrases that were circled, our group concluded that Oskar's father had a lot of animosity toward his father for leaving his mother, and that is why he circled things like "I love you, Your father". We also spent some time trying to decode the last message from Oskar's father to figure out his dying words. We determined that his father did say that he loved Oskar, but because his words were cut off, Oskar thought that he never said those words.

I also shared with the group that the French astronaut described on page 243 is probably the same man who is pictured on page 67, but I would like to know why this is included in the novel. Another one of my questions that arose from the discussion is whether or not Oskar's mother knew that his grandfather was staying in his grandmother's apartment.