Response to Ryan's Question #4

To respond to Question 4 from Ryan's email. Some of the techniques that Foer uses are the items that Oskar finds and uses to answer questions about his father. One of these items was the key Oskar found. A key holds an infinite amount of posible directions for the story to go. A key is something that everyone can relate to because everyone has keys. A key can change the course of the story completely. Also the use of the name or word "black". The same clues that Foer describes Oskar finding are our clues aswell. When Oskar speaks in the novel he is seeing and describing what we are reading about. The different items give us an insight into the novel and possible outcomes. Foer also uses the technique of multiple points of view. Unlike other stories that only tell a story from one point of view, Foer tells the story from various different characters; Oskar, his grandmother and his grandfather. This technique becomes very useful in putting all the pieces of the story together to make sence in the end.

The relationship formed between the author and the reader is very close. The author uses the catastrophy of September 11th as the main reason of the main character's problem or his pain. Just like Oskar lost his father many readers can relate in the fact that many other people died on that day, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and many other family members and friends. And even those of us who didn't lose anyone close to us because of September 11th still feel a strong connection to it because we live in the U.S and probably remember exactly where we were and what we were doing at that very moment in time because of the great shock that even though the U.S is considered by many as the most powerful country in the world, we are vulnerable. In a way, Foer's use of September 11th can also count as another technique because it helps the reader relate to the main character's problem.