Question

Read this excerpt from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I knew I could never let Mom hear the messages, because protecting her is one of my most important raisons d’être, so what I did was I took Dad’s emergency money from on top of his dresser, and I went to the Radio Shack on Amsterdam. What assumption does the narrator make in this excerpt?

Answer 1

To make an assumption means to make a guess that requires taking some facts for granted. In this case, the author is making such a guess. He wants to avoid letting his mother hear the messages. This is because the author is assuming that if the Mom were to hear them, she would be upset, annoyed, or would react in some negative way. Therefore, the author decides that it is his duty to protect her from this.

Answer 2

The assumption the narrator makes in this excerpt is that the messages he heards were going to hurt the narrator's Mom; the narrator just springs in to action. The narrator doesn't specify in this excerpt why he believes that the messages present a problem that requires protection.