Oskar: Growing Up (Philip Newland)

The most important aspect of this final section of the novel, for me, was the relationship displayed between Oskar and his mother.  After returning to his apartment early in the morning after digging up his father's grave, Oskar is hardly confronted by his mother to his own surprise.  It is easy to relate to this situation of returning at odd hours of the night or morning and having a parent waiting up for me yet, unlike Oskar's mother, my parents would be livid.  Yet she remained calm and when Oskar questions her about her seemingly apathetic mood, she states, "I trust you".  This simple three word statement represents what Oskar needed to hear throughout his epic quest of finding the connection between the Black families and the key left for him in this novel.  Oskar, being a young and extremely intelligent boy, repressed his feelings toward his father's death yet this sort of trust within his remaining family is exactly what he needed to heal his pain.

The second interesting moment between Oskar and his mother is in the morning after Oskar returns from his grave-digging and finds his mother in the exact same place she was the night before when he returned.  This is when she surprises him, and me as the reader, by saying that Oskar's father called her the day he died from the buildings.  She says, "He told me he was on the street, that he'd gotten out of the building. He said he was walking home".  Oskar, using his intelligence, guesses that "He made it up so you wouldn't worry".  Yet, his mother replies, "But he knew I knew".  This simple interaction could have taken place at the beginning of the novel and could have ridden Oskar of his guilt from not answering the phone that fateful morning yet, I believe, it was all part of the process.  Earlier in this final passage, Oskar finds out that his mother had talked to all of the Blacks before he even visited them, therefore meaning that she knew what he was doing the entire journey without letting him know.  I see this as her making sure he was safe during his quest while also giving him the necessary distance to figure things out on his own.  Thus, there are now several instances in the novel where Oskar finds out things from his mother which could have previously helped yet they were withheld for his own good.  I would say that the overall message of this novel is one of growing up for Oskar and, with his mother keeping secrets from him, allowed him to do just that.  While Oskar is an extremely intelligent and insightful young boy, his repressed emotions about his father's death are what held him back from being a "normal" boy.  Therefore, after keeping watch from a safe distance and withholding some information from him, Oskar's mother allowed him to mature and develop on his own and thereby fulfilling what I see as the main point of the novel: maturation.