In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar adapts the phrase “the ax was winning” from a comment he heard A. R. Black make. When he is in Black’s apartment, the elderly man tells Oskar about his career and his relationship with his now-deceased wife. Black says this in answer to Oskar’s question about who won the last war in which Black, a former journalist, was involved. Black used an ax to cut down a tree that he blamed for injuring his wife, but later, she died of other causes. He says that cutting down that tree was his last war. But rather than claim, as Oskar anticipated, that he won the war, he says that the ax won—and that it always wins.

Throughout the novel, Oskar finds it nearly impossible to speak with his mother about the events of September 11, not just the loss of his father. In the confusion of the day, there was a long gap between his school closing and their being reunited at their apartment. When they do have a conversation about that day, it is revealed that Oskar is resentful that she did not pick him up for school or arrive home before he did.

After trying to make him understand the multiple circumstances beyond her control that kept her from getting home before he did, she gives up and bursts into tears. At this point, Oskar must admit how many forces operating that day were keeping them apart. Her tears inspire his realization that on that day, the ax also won.