Oskar's grandmother and grandfather go through after the Dresden bombings and that Oskar goes through after the loss of his father. They argue that Oskar has a simultaneous death wish and extreme need for self-preservation: This theme is echoed in Thomas Schell, Sr.'s pronounced survivor guilt and Oskar's grandmother's well-disguised inability to cope with her trauma. They also argue that though Oskar's journey to "find" his father does not help him get over his traumatic experience, it does allow him to grow closer to his mother. Foer provides a parallel between WWII and the 9/11 attacks to not only show the timelessness of trauma and tragedy – how it affects people unbiasedly, but also how coping with trauma also means to revisit the trauma. It is also important to note the impact of the child narrator on the effectiveness of the theme of trauma. In the novel, Oskar never directly addresses through his narration the trauma he faced. Only through his journey through the city and through his grandparents' letters does he mimic the journey one must take when coping with trauma. Cultural impact Authors began producing 9/11 novels as early as 2002 as a way of recognizing the tragedy. Jonathan Safran Foer's novel was one of many that confronted the aftermath of the attacks through the eyes of a New Yorker. However, 9/11 fiction is not only a new subgenre, but a new struggle for many authors. Richard Gray stated in his book on 9/11 literature After The Fall, "If there was one thing writers agreed about in response to 9/11, it was the failure of language; the terrorist attacks made the tools of their trade seem absurd." There was a desire to write about the experience, to recognize the individual impact, as well as the greater social impact, while appreciating the mourning of the country, but many authors found it difficult to do so. Foer utilizes the child narrator in an attempt to connect with that struggle. The struggle of the child to understand the trauma is reflective of the struggle many faced after the trauma of the 9/11 attacks. Foer's novel was one of the most popular and widely read novels of this post 9/11 fiction subgenre. Because of its great popularity, its message had a greater impact than many novels of its kind. Apart from the terrorist attacks of September 11, the novel also sheds light