In this book the primary character is a nine year old boy named Oskar Schell, he is on a “mission” throughout New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a key that belonged to his father. Oskar’s father died in the world trade center on September 11th. His journey takes him through many memories, new experiences, and overwhelming amounts of emotion.
Throughout the book I noticed a theme of lying. Oskar frequently lies to people, sometimes in an effort to receive sympathy, sometimes to escape, and sometimes because he cannot bear to tell the truth. The book switches from Oskar’s perspective to the perspective of his grandmother and also his grandfather (it’s a little confusing). So to be philosophical I thought of a question, which Sophia stern told me a little about before I read the book. When can you lie? Or more of when is it ok to lie? I have to say that this book is very powerful, it’s very emotional. I believe that it is ok to lie sometimes. We all know the phrase “ignorance is bliss”, I believe that it is ok not to tell something to someone because it is painful to know. Generally the truth is better in most situations. But I believe there can definitely be reasonable exceptions. It’s one thing to lie to your parents when you got in trouble in school and it’s another thing to lie to someone because the truth is too painful. Some of you may believe that even if the truth is hard to accept it still should be known, but I think it’s not necessary. I know that if I was in the same situation as the character in my book, I would have not told anyone.
great post liza. I agree with you when you say the saying the truth may not always be a good thing and that lying is sometimes neccesary. You also put yourself into the main charecters shoes and i think you would have made the correct choices.
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