Comparing Outside Reading to Class Literature

First of all, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen, is similar to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. They both use flashbacks as a way to reveal different areas of the characters’ lives. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, flashbacks were used to show Oskar’s memories of his dead father, and to show the relationship they had. In Water for Elephants, the every other chapter shows Jacob Jankowski’s life working for the circus. The chapter’s in between show Jacob’s life sixty years later in a nursing home. This technique is used to reveal a secret regarding the death of August. Jacob kept this secret his whole life, and says that “In seventy years, I’ve never told a blessed soul” (4).
Secondly, Water for Elephants is written in the same style as Black Boy. Although Water for Elephants, is not a memoir, it is written in the same format. Jacob is reflecting in the nursing home, talking about his life in the circus. Speaking about his life helps to explain his personality, and his anger in the nursing home. Jacob says “the ghosts of my past rattle around my vacuous present” (13). With so much bottled up emotion, one is bound to be angry, especially when they are pent up in a nursing home, with only their ghosts to haunt them.