By not focusing on 9/11 and by centering the story around a young boy we get to know through the book, who lost his father to this disaster. We don't get as caught up in the chaos of the tragedy that took place but more focused on Oskar. The significance of the destruction of the twin towers and the lives lost may be too significant for Oskar's mind to handle and call by its actual name. "When Dad was tucking me in the night, the night before the worst day."(12)
Oskar cannot handle the significance of 9/11, and is too afraid to accept the fact that this event has occurred. But I think deep down he realizes its significance as he is afraid to go up building stories, walk across bridges, and take public transportation. The quote "I can't go up. Why not? Because you're on the ninth floor and I don't go up that high." shows Oskar's fear of the event, proving that he realizes what has happened. Also this could tie into the five stages of grief showing that Oskar has not completely come to the stage of acceptance.
Well yeah, everyone here is right. If you had just lost someone you love, the last thing you'd try and think about would be, you know, the hospital, the fire, the water, the car (or however they died), because you wouldn't want to remember it. What seems to happen is that everything around Oskar turns itself into some sort of symbol or reminder of 9/11, because, internally, that's what he's focusing on. Externally, he isn't.
Perhaps another reason for his refusal to bring up 9/11 could be simply because he finds it too painful a subject to discuss. Evidently close to his father, Oskar could not want to reopen the wounds he received on that fateful day, and so tries to quash mention of it. He could feel that by bringing up the subject in public his memories of his father lose their personal feel: he wants to keep his remembered father to himself, and not openly invite strangers to discuss him.
I think Oskar spends less time than expected discussing 9/11 is that it was the day his Dad died. To discuss it, he'd have to think about the effects of it...aka his Dad dying. It's another part of the grieving process and not thinking.
I believe that 9/11 isn't focused on the show the personal struggle that Oskar went through. As opposed to looking at the symbolic event of the attack on the twin towers, JSF tries to show how Oskar suffers as a result of it.
I agree with the above comment. JSF merely used 9/11 as part of the setting for his story. His focus is more on the Significance of people and their relationships. The author is trying to examine how traumatic events affect everyday experiences. His novel explores how people grieve, heal, and love one another. To focus too much on 9/11 would take away from the central messages of the novel by distracting people with the chaos and passions surrounding that event.
I think that 9/11 doesn't show up many times is because I would imagine, when your that young, the last thing you would want to think about it how your dad died. I know that if my dad died in 9/11, the last thing I'd wanna think about were his last moments, wondering if he jumped out of the building? or if he burned to death? or did he die during the collapse?
The reason JSF doesn't include more emphasis on September 11th, is because this isn't a book about 9/11. This is a story about a young boy who lost his father trying to find some closure in his life. The post 9/11 New York is simply the setting for this story, the book would have retained it's meaning and message is Oskar's father had died in any manner.