Everything Is Illuminated Themes

You'd think every book would be about literature and writing, but there are some literary characters whom we don't think have ever cracked a book. (Anastasia Steele says she loves British lite...

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, did it fall at all? (Any squirrels crushed beneath it would say "YES." Or they would, if they weren't squished flat.) And if something...

When the author of the book is actually in the book, does that make it true? Or does the obvious fabrication of magical-type events make a book untrue? And is Everything is Illuminated a creat...

Grandparents are great sources of information: the cheap price of gas, sepia-toned family photos, stories about how they were responsible for the death of their best friend during World War II …....

Your parents didn't just have to meet (and do a little more, but we'll talk about that in this section) in order to have you. Their parents had to meet, and theirs, and theirs, and so on. Every lit...

Sexual prowess and masculinity are often closely intertwined. We see it in literature (like Love in the Time of Cholera) and in films (umm, Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo?)—and we see it in Everythin...

If love makes the world go round, did the world stop during World War II? That just might be the fundamental question of Everything is Illuminated, which is all about trying to find love during dif...

All though Everything is Illuminated, religion drives people apart almost as much as it brings them together. Trachimbrod is formed by Jews who are fleeing anti-Jewish laws, but the Jews themselves...

Traveling to a different country also brings about some form of culture shock, whether it be from misunderstood hand gestures or a dog who won't stop humping you in the backseat of your translator'...

Because Everything is Illuminated begins with the promise of a quest—Jonathan Safran Foer (the character) is headed to the Ukraine to find information about his grandfather—you'd think Explorat...