Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

        Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is about a boy named Oskar, who's father died in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th. Before Oskar's father died, he always gave Oskar riddles and mysteries to solve. And the night before he died, he told Oskar that there was a missing 6th borough of the city of New York. Oskar was unable to solve this mystery because his father died the very next day. Then, months after the attacks, Oskar finds what he believes to be a clue. It is a key that he found in a vase with the name "Black" on it. Because of this supposed clue, Oskar goes on a journey to find what this key unlocks because he believes it is another of his father's mysteries. I think that it has nothing to do with any mystery and Oskar is just creating this illusion, because he doesn't want to accept that his father is completely gone.

        One reason why I think that Oskar doesn't want to accept that his father is completely gone is because he is always mad at his mother whenever it appears that she is being happy or having fun because he believes that this is the same thing as forgetting his Dad or getting over him. For example when Oskar heard his mother laughing and joking around with her "friend" Ron, he said "why don't you miss dad?" and they ended up having a conversation in which Oskar said all of the things that you should never say to a widow that is still secretly grieving for her husband including "I wish it had been you instead", Another example of this is because Oskar suspects (most likely correctly) that Ron and his mother are in a romantic relationship. This incredibly hurts Oskar because he thinks that his mother is replacing his father and in a way this is. And he tries to make her promise to never fall in love again. This all shows that Oskar doesn't want to accept that his Dad is completely gone.

       Another reason why I think that Oskar doesn't want to accept that his Dad is completely gone is because he continues to do the things that he did with his Dad  but he makes no changes. it is really sad because he looks through the papers for mistakes and  he invents things by himself when he would only ever do these things with his father. The most depressing part is that these things don't always work when Oskar does them by himself but he continues anyway because he doesn't want to accept that his dad is really completely gone.
    Overall, it is obvious why Oskar doesn't want to accept that his dad is dead, and that is because he loved him and he never expected that he would have to deal with life without him, so he is having a hard time coping. And the only way he keeps himself from falling into total depression is by not accepting that his father is really gone.