Interconnectivity

I just wanted to write a little bit about interconnectivity; after spending some time thinking about it I realized how much interconnectivity is a huge theme in the book. For example, Oskar is already connected to thousands of people through his experience of his father's death on. He is further connected to other people as he searches for the meaning his father's key by talking to everyone who has the last name Black. What is interesting is that Foer further connects all the people who have the last name Black. Everyone who Oskar visits comes to see Hamlet. There Oskar describes all the Blacks that he sees out in the audience. Everything there is connected through Oskar even though they don't realize it. In another example, when Oskar's father is telling the story about the Sixth Borough, he says a sentence that had a lot of themes of connectivity. "The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body." All of the items that he described are all what connects the boy and the girl. In addition, each item doesn't directly belong to either the girl or the boy. For example, the guilt belonged to his great-uncle. In this way, Foer connects not only the boy and the girl, but everyone whose items listed. Foer uses connectivity throughout the whole entire novel. Most notably is the structure of the novel. He uses different perspectives so that to the reader, everything seems very disconnected. However, as the reader continues to read, we realize that everything is starting to connect with each other, until finally at the end, everything is connected and makes sense. I think what Foer is trying to portray here is that everyone in the world is connected to one another; it's just whether we believe that we are connected or not. Someone on the street might be connected to me because we went to the same school. Some may argue that we aren't connected because we have had no physical interaction; however, Foer believes that even the smallest action can connect two people.