- Oskar, like many children may view his parents as invincible protectors. They serve as his guardians againsed the cruelties of the world. Now that is father is gone he no longer feels safe in his environment. He constantly avoids anything associated with his father's death because if it took his father's life, it could easily take his own. This emtpy space where his father should be serves a gap for earthly invaders. His fortress, or source of security, has been fragmented.
- Doesn't feel safe because Oskar as only on parent left, and his safety can be spontaneously shattered ex. 9-11 (?)
- Irony: Oskar gives out his own key to people he "trusts."
-One person Oskar seems to trust and talk to is his grandmother. After Mr.Black says he will no longer help Oskar, Oskar goes staight to his gradmother's house to tell her all about the past few months. She is one person he is sometimes willing to talk to, and to release how he is feeling. He feels secure with her
The idea of safety is closely associated with that of the Tortoises motif. Safety could be represented by the turtles because they can hide in their shells and be locked away from the outside world.
This quote about pockets is another example of how random nine-year old minds are. It also shows us that he wants to feel close with his family and make sure there all safe so something doesn't happen again like it did to his father. He wants to have the warm fuzzy feeling, knowing that everyone that means a lot to him is close and well.
"He said, "If you come up, I'll have a look at that key." "I can't go up." Whey not?" "Because you are on the ninth floor and I don't go that high." "Why not?" "It isn't safe." "But it's perfectly safe here." "Until something happens." (90)
The previous quotation is a link between Oskars fear of heights and his recurring fear of september 11.
His mom is worried about the safety of the apartment when she finds out Oskar has made copies of the apartment keys for various people.
When Oskar is preparing to go on his search for the sender of the key he brings many items along with him, including " [...] iodine pills in case of a dirty bomb". This shows how overly concerned Oskar is about safety, due to past mental scarring.
"Even after a year, I still had an extremely difficult time doing certain things, like taking showers, for some reason, and getting into elevators, obviously. There was a lot of stuff that made me panicky, like suspension bridges, germs, airplanes, fireworks, and Arab People[...]." (p.36)
This shows Oskars fears that he now has since 9/11. It demonstrates also his fear of the perpetrators of 9/11, causing some racist thoughts within him, though he denies it.
"Ever since that day, whenever we go on walks she makes us play a game like Marco Polo, where she calls my name and I have to call back to let her know I'm OK. (Page number?)" This shows that Oskar's Grandma is afraid that the same thing that happen to Oskar's dad will happen to Oskar.
On page 133, Oskar's grandmother tells his grandfather, "Promise me you'll take care [...] I know you look both ways before you cross a street, but I want you to look both ways a second time." Maybe not all of Oskar's trait of being a safety freak comes from his dad's death. It may partially run in the family.
"She agreed to wait outside, but only if i held a ball of yarn, which went under the bathroom door and was connected to the scarf she was knitting. Every few seconds she would give it a tug, and I had to tug back - undoing what she'd just done - so that she knew I was OK (100)".
"I rang the doorbell. She didnt answer, so I opened the dooro, because she always leaves it unlocked, even though i don't think that's safe, because sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped" (100)
"What if you trained Seeing Eye dogs to be bomb-sniffing dogs, so that they'd be Sniffing Eye Seeing Bomb dogs? That way, blind people could get paid for being led around, and could be contributing members of our society, and we'd all be safer, too."(193)
"Normally I don't like food that isn't individually wrapped or prepared by Mom" (196). I think this may be because he knows foods that have been wrapped up are sealed and safe to eat. And he knows that his mom wouldn't do anything unsafe to his food. So food is another safety thing Oskar has trouble with.
"Almost the whole ride to the Bronx was underground, which made me incredibly panicky, but once we got to the poor parts, it went above ground, which i preferred."(194) - This quote is showing that Oskar feels unsafe in unknown places with different type of (poor) people around him.
"Poor child,telling everything to a stranger, I wanted to build walls around him, I wanted to separate him from the outside[...]" (280)
At the very end of the book, Oskar is trying to think of ways that would have made it so that his dad did not die on September 11, and makes it so that everything goes backwards. He concludes his thought process by saying, "We would have been safe."
Saftey is similar to the motif of Locks because if you lock something up, you are keeping it safe. Oskar looks for this lock for eight months to keep himself closer to his dad, who makes him feel safe.