Pg. 11 Oskar writes to Stephen Hawking and gets a response. (First Letter)
Pg 16-34 The entire chapter is in the form of a letter addressed "To my unborn child."
Pg 40 Oskar receives a letter from Ringo along with a singed T-shirt.
Pg 51 Oskar writes a letter to his french teacher pretending to be his mom.
Pg 75-85 Oskar's grandmother writes him [Oskar] a letter describing her life. She explains that she used to collect letters. Maybe she was thinking that with different points of view on life she would understand her own life better.
Pg.75 Oskar recieves finds letter from a prisoner at a Turkish Turkish Labor Camp from 1921 and asks for help and he wonders why he was getting this letter now. I think this letter is provided to show Oskar that other people go through struggles in thier lives too.
He continued to write letters to the board. He continued to blame himself and forgive his wife, not knowing that there was no one on the other end. Here, on page 78, letters are used as an allusion of sorts to not giving up and persisting through anything and everything undertaken.
Pg 83- Oskar's grandmothers says that maybe is she didn't collected letters that one of the reasons her house burned brighter was because of the hundreds of letter she collected. I think she's trying to say that maybe if she stopped collecting letters and replying to letter than it could've saved her life in Germany.
Pg 106 Oskar writes to: Kofi Annan, Siegfried, Roy, Jacques Chirac, E. O. Wilson, Weird Al Yankovic, Bill Gates, Vladimir Putin, and others.
Pg. 119 There is a letter that Oskar's grandmother writes and finally reveals that she is blind and that for all this time Oskar's grandfather would write letters to her and she would not even know what she said
Pg. 106 Oskar gets another automatic response from Stephen Hawkings email website.
"I had pulled the ribbon from the machine, it had been an act of revenge against the typewriter and against myself, I'd pulled it into one long threat, unwinding the negative it held -- the future homes I had created for Anna, the letters I wrote without response -- as if it would protect me from my actual life. But worse -- it's unspeakable, write it! -- I realized that your mother couldn't see the emptiness, she couldn't see anything" (124). This quote comes from Oskar's grandfather and can be linked to Anna.
"Dear Oskar Schell,
Thank you for your contribution to the American Diabetes Foundation. Every dollar - or, in your case, fifty cents - counts.
I have enclosed some additional literature about the Foundation, including our mission statement, a brochure featuring past activities and successes, as well as some information about our future goals, both short- and long-term.
Thank you, once more, for contributing to this urgent cause. You are saving lives.
With gratitude,
Patricia Roxbury
President, New York Chapter"
This letter is from the American Diabetes foundation, and it is a sign of how childish Oskar is. To provide a little more comic relief and more in depth to the POV as a child, JSF includes this part of Oskar donating just fifty cents.
When Oskar was talking to his grandma about some of the letters he sent she asked, "Why don't you write a letter to someone you know?" (106)
I think people write letters because they feel like they need to tell their story.This is demonstrated in the letter from the Turkish Labor Camp: "I have chosen to write you without knowing who you are. [...] I have written XXX XX XXXXX XXXXXXX every day since I have been here." (75). The writer of the letter attempts to tell his story, even though he doesn't think his letters are being sent. He continues to writing letters and eventually, Oskar's grandmother receives one fifteen years after it is sent. His perseverance shows how important it is to him share his story. The fact that it is censored adds more power to his need to share his experiences.
This also links to Opening up to strangers.
On page 199, there is a letter from Jane Goodall.
"It was filled with envelopes. Hundreds of them. They were tied together in bundles. I opened the next drawer down, and it was also filled with envelopes. So was the drawer underneath it. All of them were." (235)
From page 208 to 216, there is a letter from Oskar's grandfather that was written to Oskar's father. The letter has been edited with red pen marks by who I am expecting to be Oskar's father. In addition to circling grammatical errors, he circles things such as my child, I love you, and you can't love anything more than you miss it. This shows that he feels as though what his father wrote was incorrect and that he didn't feel as though he could claim things such as I love you to him when he hadn't even been there for his growing up. He feels upset that his father is trying to make up for what he did, and doesn't feel like sorry is enough.
"Dear Oskar, thanks for mailing me the 76.50$ you owed me. To tell you the truth i never thought i'd see that money. Now i will believe everyone. (cab driver) Marty Mahaltra P.S. No tip?" (193)
This letter to oskar shows that oskar is changing people's lives and giving them hope in others. This seems interesting to me that Oskar would have this effect on people when he has suffered such a depressing/disappointing/negative moment in his life.
On page 296, Oskar meets William Black, the man who had met his father. The man told Oskar a personal story from his own life. Oskar soon finds out that other people also express themselves through writing letters. "'My father wrote letters when he found out about the cancer. He wasn't much of a letter writer before. I don't know if he ever wrote. But he spent his last two months writing obsessively. Whenever he was awake.' I asked why, but what I really wanted to know was why I started writing letters after Dad died. 'He was trying to say his goodbyes. He wrote to people he barely knew. If he hadn't already been sick, his letters would have been his sickness."
"The sun is low, the shadows are long, the air is cold and clean. You won't be awake for another five hours, but I can't help feeling that we're sharing this clear and beautiful morining." (305) This quotation was the letter to Oskar from Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking seems to be displaying a fatherly figure for Oskar.
This use of letters is effective in creating a plot within a plot. Ultimately, the reader gets to know more of the characters by swtiching to their point of view, creating multiple round characters in the book.