"I change the sheets every morning to wash away my
writing." What does this mean?
Looking at each of the rules that Thomas and his wife have, I have to wonder how each of the rules came into existence. Take a look at each rule. What do you think happened that made that rule a rule?
What is the history of Dresden? Look that up and see how that might have affected the grandparents.
On his last night with his wife, when he covers her eyes and says "Something", followed by "We must be", what is Thomas trying to communicate?
Here's a good question: It's 1963. He is writing a letter to his unborn son. How does he know it will be a boy?
Why does Anna's father bury books? I mean, the book kind of tells us, but think about it more...why does Anna's father bury the books?
Did you notice the difference between the two pictures of the door knob? Why is that difference significant? What do you think it represents?
What a tragic story about the writing of her life story...what does that symbolize? There is the obvious, but I think there is more. What do you think?
Explain why Thomas is leaving-- from your perspective, not his.
What happens at the end of the chapter on those one-sentence pages? Explain to the best of your ability...what happened there?
Simon Goldberg is an actual historical figure...figure out what he's about, and you will better understand the exchange between him and Thomas.
Looking at each of the rules that Thomas and his wife have, I have to wonder how each of the rules came into existence. Take a look at each rule. What do you think happened that made that rule a rule?
What is the history of Dresden? Look that up and see how that might have affected the grandparents.
On his last night with his wife, when he covers her eyes and says "Something", followed by "We must be", what is Thomas trying to communicate?
Here's a good question: It's 1963. He is writing a letter to his unborn son. How does he know it will be a boy?
Why does Anna's father bury books? I mean, the book kind of tells us, but think about it more...why does Anna's father bury the books?
Did you notice the difference between the two pictures of the door knob? Why is that difference significant? What do you think it represents?
What a tragic story about the writing of her life story...what does that symbolize? There is the obvious, but I think there is more. What do you think?
Explain why Thomas is leaving-- from your perspective, not his.
What happens at the end of the chapter on those one-sentence pages? Explain to the best of your ability...what happened there?
Simon Goldberg is an actual historical figure...figure out what he's about, and you will better understand the exchange between him and Thomas.
21 comments:
I think Thomas is leaving because he is afraid of what kind of life he would be giving his child. He realizes that his relationship with his wife isn't the strongest (they barely even communicate). There might be a deeper meaning into why he truly left, but through my eyes/perspective that's what I thought the reason was when I read it. Also, it seems to appear that there is something missing in their strange relationship. I think that is why Thomas's wife wanted to have a child, because she felt as if something was missing and she needed this child in her life.
I think Thomas is leaving because he isn't sure of how to raise a child and he is scared by just of the thought. His wife broke one of the first rules that they made together (not having kids) and I think that caused him to panic and made his world turn upside down. Ever since they started living together they have both made many rules that they have always followed. I think he was worried that he wouldn't be a good father to his son. I also think he wanted to leave because he found out that he isn't as close to his wife as what he thought he was. His wife desperately wanted to have a child to make one final attempt to bring herself closer to her husband so they could bond as a family however, the child seemed to be the main thing tearing them apart.
I think Thomas is leaving because he is afraid. He's afraid that his wife is merely blind, he's afraid of letting her down, he is afraid he will never see his love ( Anna) again. So many things, and he ran. I felt really bad when the grandma wrote he life story, only to fin out that th type writer was broken, because Thomas broke it. It obviously showed that she wrote a lot. She had pages upon pages of writing. She had a lot to say. I think it symbolized that nothing in her life was worth saying? I don't know, thats a tough one.
What a tragic story about the writing of her life story...what does that symbolize? There is the obvious, but I think there is more. What do you think?
The tragic story of writing her life story symbolizes the strength and perseverance of Oskar’s grandmother. Even though she cannot see, she still wants to produce something worthy for her husband to read. She loves him dearly and doesn't want to disappoint him so she writes nonetheless.
Did you notice the difference between the two pictures of the door knob? Why is that difference significant? What do you think it represents?
The first picture of the door knob is the outside view, from which someone trying to get into a house would see. This picture of the knob has the lock while the second picture of the door knob has the switch for the lock. The second picture is the view from within the house. I think that these pictures say that while Thomas was trying to visit Anna, she wasn't out trying to visit him but was hiding in her own house. After all, Anna’s sister had seen Thomas visit once (pg 114) and she could have told Anna that Thomas was looking for her if Anna was really trying to meet with Thomas.
I think Thomas is leaving because he is scared. Thomas is afraid he will not be able to keep his wife and future child happy. Deep down inside he knows the way they live isn't fit for a child. Their lack of communication and the crazy rules that seem to appear everyday are not what a child needs. He knows a son looks up to his father so he doesn't want to be his sons role model. He wants his son to be a better man than he is. I also feel another reason why he left is because he did not feel right raising a child and having a life with the woman he love's sister. He deeply misses Anna and couldn't go on pretending his wife was Anna.
I think Thomas is leaving because he is afraid of what is going to happen in the future. He is not only broken by his wife breaking their rule of having no kids, but he is broken from what him and his wife have become. They have become people that would rather be in nothing some of the time then being with their so called "love of their lives." Thomas and his wife hardly communicate anymore and i think he sees that as a crazy life to put his soon to be child into. So many rules the child will not need to have a part of their life. Also, Thomas seems to be afraid of never seeing Anna again. He feels as though he cannot love his wife the same way he loves Anna. There is a gap between Thomas and his wife, a child on the way, and too many possibilities for Thomas to handle. He flees to save himself and to hopefully save his future child.
I honestly think that Thomas leaves because he became overwhelmed with the life he's settled into. He is constantly revisiting the past- thinking about Anna, as shown when he uses her sister to sculpt her and in his many times looking back into their childhood. He's built a life with the dead girl he loved's sister- never a good idea- and neither of them can truly get past what they've lost to meet in the middle. Instead, the weaknesses and insecurities on both sides eat up any chances they could ever have of a truly functional relationship, and he realizes that he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life trapped in the rules they've created for each other. All this granted, it was still a very crappy thing for him to pull on his pregnant wife instead of trying to work through their issues or simply be there for his child. I also think that the one pagers at the end signify him running into his wife in the midst of his attempted escape.
I feel like Thomas left for 2 main reasons: It wasn't working, and to save his kid from a screwed up household. Imagine living in a house hold where there is no love. A household where the husband is trying to sculpt his wife into someone that she is not, where your partner for life knows that she's not who you really love. A household where they're certain areas where you don't exist, where time stops as nothing, according to the occupants, exists in marked off areas. Now imagine these areas everywhere, a household where everyone is too scared to know what others think about them, or don't just want to hear it. Now think, would you want your child growing up in a household, where the parents don't love, but only tolerate each other. Growing up in a house filled with red tape, in which you are void of the universe of your house. I feel like a child growing up in a house like that would feel like a trouble on his parents and possibly lead to depression or much worse.
After looking up pictures of Dresden I am both disturbed and have a new understanding of the grandparents' relationship. Dresden was literally leveled by bombs during WWII by Allie forces (America and Great Britain). Additionally, the bombing was largely controversial because Dresden was not a very important city except that it harbored many German lives. So one can infer that Thomas and his wife have lost nearly everything and everyone in their homeland. This brings a new light to the "nothing" spaces. If I had had something so tragic happen, I think a safe space to disappear would be a daily need. It also explains other aspects of their marriage such as Thomas's wife's ritual of putting lotion on him before he goes outside. She is trying to protect the one thing from home she hasn't lost.
This general no-speaking joint has got me in an oddly relaxed state. Tangent- the way this history is woven in kind of reminds me of good old Forest Gump. After that digression, have you ever seen ASMR youtube videos? The Grandfather's stories, to me, are read in subtitles that make me reminiscent to ASMR videos. Weird as that sentence may be, here's the explanation for it;
IN ESSENCE, when I read a book or other form of written dialogue, there's a wee little voice in my head that goes about reading the words out loud in my mind. It's my voice, don't worry, but I'm not sure if it's the same for other people. The experience resembles watching Shawshank Redemption or any other movie with a good voice-over. However, the voice-over and noise in my mind for the Grandfather's chapters are mute, with subtitles. Which are then read by another smaller voice of mine, inside of my mind's mind. It's a neat little conundrum and some food for thought.
Here's some more that I can't figure out- is a monochromatic zebra missing all or half it's stripes? Think about it.
Thomas was very scared of becoming a father, and staying in a relationship that he really did not want to be in. He was scared of the impact that he would have on his child's life, and what it would do to the child. He wrote letters to his unborn child in order to trick himself into thinking that he actually did what he was supposed to which was apologize, even though he never gave them to his unborn child in person. He wanted to apologize without actually admitting to the guilt that he felt for the decision that he had made to leave.
I think the quote, "I change the sheets every morning to wash away my writing" represents Thomas trying to distance himself from his wife. Everyday he stays with her, he is writing himself into her world and memories, making it more difficult for him to leave her.
The night he finally leaves her, he tries to tell her that they are something, despite the fact that they'd been existing in nothing.
The fact that all that exists of Oskar's grandmother's life story is blank pages resonates with the motif of the insignificance of human life seen throughout the book. She believed she was making her story permanent, leaving a mark on the world, but was left with nothing. However, the fact that Thomas kept encouraging her to write anyway is a testament to the fact that he did care about her, and in the end, it wasn't all for nothing.
The rules of Thomas and his wife's home increase over time - both in number and influence of their lives. I can understand the first rule (they don't talk about the past) because traumatic events can rip holes in relationships. Personally, I think it was a missed opportunity to grow together, but the goal of that rule and all the others is to prevent them from feeling any pain or sadness. Another rule is that they don't listen to sad music, because "songs are as sad as the listener". Eventually their home is almost void of music. Each rule had the chance to become a wedge in their relationship, despite being created to make their lives together simpler. By far, the largest wedge was their creation of "Nothing Places". These spaces allowed them to cease to exist for the moments it was needed, but over time these spaces in their home increased in size and frequency of use. I think the more they used the spaces, especially when his wife used a space to write her life story, it showed how they were stuck in this life which never moved forward or changed. Ultimately, I believe Thomas left so he and his wife could move on independently and achieve more with their lives than they ever could together.
In the novel, Oskar’s grandmother tells the story of how she ended up with Oskar’s grandfather. In a semi- romantic/creepy way, Oskar’s grandfather would ask her to take off her clothes so he could sculpt her to look like another firl he once knew, touching her more and more each time. Eventually she explains how weeks later, while sculpting, he initiated sex with her. Being a virgin, her grandmother exclaimed that she felt like crying and asked, “Why does anyone ever make love?” This whole scene reminded me of a book I once read called Why the Caged Bird Sings by Mya Angelou. Mya told of the scarring days where her mother’s boyfriend raped her. She had conveyed similar feelings. Mya felt like crying, she was uncomfortable, she didn’t understand why people participated in something so painful. It made me think, sex is associated with the phrase “making love” and love is supposed to be something happy, pure, and enjoyable. Why is it that something so painful, potentially scarring, and possibly life threatening is associated with love? Is it beacause love is not what we think it is? Love can be just the same, painful, scarring, and life threataning?
After Oskar’s father had passed on 9/11, he briefly explains how he is terrefied of the 9th floor. When investigating a key he found that belonged to his father, Oskar stumbles up to the door of a man named Mr. Black. Black was the word that his father had written on a chalkboard in a store he used to go to with his father. Therefore, Oskar had decided to find everything and everyone associated with the word. While talking to Mr. Black, Oskar is invited to Mr. black’s apartment, on the 9th floor. In a hurried response, Oskar refuses to travel to his home. For the longest time I wondered why Oskar would be scared of that specific floor. Then something occured to me. Could it possibly be that his father worked on the 9th floor? Did he fall 9 stories to his death? It reminds me of how tall buildings even today don’t have a 13th floor.
Thomas didn't like the relationship he was in and he was about to have a child. The child he has decided to leave and he feels guilty for leaving the unborn child without a father. He is afraid he won't be the best example and was afraid of what type of impact he would have on his life. He wrote letters to the child that hasn't been born yet and he only did this to take away his guilt for the decision to leave the child. He wrote them but never gave them to him which was going to be his way of saying he was sorry and apologizing for leaving before the child was born.
I think that the main reason that Thomas left was to give his kid a better chance. Growing up in a home with so many rules, lots of isolation, and no love or communication would be scarring for a child. He figured that he would try to give the kid the best possible chance at a normal life. He was trying to save the child from the unhealthy relationship that the two of them had. Leaving was all he knew to do at that time. It's sad that he felt the need to leave, but with the way things were, his thinking makes sense.
As for the tragic story about the writing of her life story, I think it was odd that Thomas didn't mention to her that they were blank. You would think that when someone shows you something that is supposed to be a written story, and you are handed blank pages, you'd say something instead of lying. This makes me think that he doesn't care about her as much as we are led to believe. It's obvious they don't love each other, but you would think he cared enough to let her know. As for the more symbolic part of it, I think that the blank pages could represent how blank she felt as a person. We know she has encountered lots of loss in her life, because she talked about it to grandpa when they first met. These blank pages represent that her life is blank ever since the losses she has experienced. She may also feel blank inside because there is no love in their relationship, and she isn't even who he wants to be married to. She would definitely feel blank knowing the whole time they are together, her husband wishes she were her sister instead.
I feel that Thomas left his family because he viewed himself as being incapable of raising a child and that he would do better without him. I feel like he saw how strange his lifestyle was with his wife and felt it was the wrong environment to raise a child. I nonetheless feel his reasons are not good enough to justify him running from his responsibilities as a father, though I can also see someone like him lacking the strength to full fill his responsibilities. I feel no sympathy for him in the idea that he had a child with this women who he doesn't have feelings for leaving her to raise the kid all on her own. I believe if the true, main reason for him leaving his family is that he didn't love her than he did the wrong thing, because the well-being of his child should be placed above his own personal happiness.
The two pictures of the doorknob are different in that there's a key in the second one. It ties into the story in that shortly after the image of the filled keyhole, Thomas leaves, telling his wife that he doesn’t love her, and that may have been the key to his unhappiness, or restlessness in that house or whatever, the fact that he was in a loveless relationship. On the writing of her life story, I think it’s a message to not get caught up in the past, because your life is right here with you, whether you can remember it well or not. Your choices are your life, your memories are your life, the way you interact with others is your life. On the topic of those one-sentence pages, they progress from “Where do you get tickets?” to “I want to buy a ticket to Dresden.” to “What are you doing here?” “You have to go home. You should be in bed.” “Let me take you home.” “You’re being crazy, you’re going to catch a cold.” “You’re going to catch a colder.” I can only assume that his wife knew he was leaving and couldn’t stand to be without him, so she followed him. Also, Dresden was bombed in 1945, and neither of them died in it, so I’m guessing that maybe he was there but survived? Perhaps this is the source of his trauma? Did Dresden take his words?
Thomas changes the sheets every morning to was away his writing because he would write on his arms when he ran out of paper at the end of the day. As he tossed and turned the ink would get all over the sheets. I believe Thomas leaves because i don't think he would be a good father to a child. The home situation with all of the rules would not be a nurturing place for a child to grow up in. I think he was worried about what a child would think of a father that couldn't speak.
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