Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of self-harm and war-related violence.

Oskar Schell, the protagonist of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is nine years old when the story begins a year after his father’s death in the 9/11 attacks in New York City. Oskar is intelligent and precocious, always asking questions, doing research, and exploring the world on his own. He does have a couple of friends his age, but they are never seen in the story. His father encouraged his independence and curiosity, and this is what Oskar loved most about his dad. Oskar has knowledge beyond his years in topics like relationships, death, sex, science, and history. He asks probing questions about existence and the universe. As the story opens, his former atheism is evolving into agnosticism:

Even though I’m not anymore, I used to be an atheist, which means I didn’t believe in things that couldn’t be observed. I believed that once you’re dead, you’re dead forever, and you don’t feel anything, and you don’t even dream. It’s not that I believe in things that can’t be observed now, because I don’t. It’s that I believe that things are extremely complicated (4).