Unlike traditional apocalypse writers, DeLillo seems to claim that it is not the end of the world but how ordinary people feel about their threatened world that really counts. The argument utilizes the cultural as well as the textual perspectives that mark Falling Man as a counter-terrorist narrative. This is probably why DeLillo assumes a narrative position that combines irony, parody, and, at times, playfulness.
Ultimately, this essay argues that DeLillo’s parody of the apocalypse does not provide a promise of redemption but perpetuates the sense of uncertainty about the end of the human world. The significance of this study lies in showing that while DeLillo inverses or deconstructs the paradigms of traditional apocalypse in the novel, he constructs, instead, a secular version of apocalypse in order to unmask the threats that lurk beneath the individual as well as communal life. This entrapment into the mood of speculating about the End is closely associated with the mood of Islamophobia that permeates Western mainstream media. This work illustrates how DeLillo’s inversion of these paradigms foregrounds the entrapment of his characters into a mood of speculation about the end of the world. N this study we argue that Don DeLillo parodies the paradigms of traditional apocalypse narratives in his novel, Falling Man (2007). Islam is viewed as the most operative factor in motivating Muslims' antagonist views and deeds against non-Muslims. Through means of difference, Muslims are rendered more enemy-like and less humane in DeLillo's novel. In the third construct, 'clashing Islam,' the role of Islam as a conflicting ideology is to be elaborated on as epitomized in the novel. DeLillo's architected enemies will be studied through three constructs, specifically, 'difference,' 'Islamic agency' and 'clashing Islam.' The first construct, 'difference,' inspects how contrast between Muslims and non-Muslims operates within the novel's architected enmity, while 'Islamic agency' focuses on the narrative's illustration of the associations between Islam, on the one hand, and Muslims' extremist acts and radical beliefs, on the other. By means of architectures of enmity, the other is deliberately crafted into a discriminated entity whose enemy-like attributes are highlighted and reiterated to serve geopolitical interests in the other and justify violence against him/her. It also seeks to situate the novelist's depiction of Islam and Muslims within due geopolitical implications. This paper aims to investigate DeLillo's exemplification of Islam and Muslims in the light of post-9/11 discourse on Islam and Muslims. Falling Man (2007) was published six years after the watershed event. Keywords: Post-9/11 fiction, USA, Islam, Terrorism, Falling Man, Representation, Stereotypes.Īs one of the prominent literary figures in the United States, Don DeLillo (2001) urged novelists to produce a counter-narrative in response to September 2001 attacks.
This affirms the Orientalist thesis of the incompatibility between the Islamic East and Modern West.
This present paper examines how DeLillo conceptualizes terrorism through the representation of the character of Hammad to strengthen the typical Orientalist image of Islam as a faith based upon violence and struggle and Muslims as fanatic terrorists.
#Man point left copy space free#
DeLillo’s contribution lies in articulating the experience of the terrorist through Hammad, the fictive member of that group whose thoughts are rendered free indirect style. He dares to imagine what might be going on within the inner circle of a group of Muslim terrorists known as the Hamburg cell who will later on carry out the attacks of 9/11. Adopting an Orientalist perspective, DeLillo fictionalizes the 9/11 attacks concentrating on the subject of terrorism which is attached to Islam and Muslims. In Falling Man (2007), DeLillo confronts the violent reality of the attacks as part of the cultural process of representing and interpreting them. Don DeLillo, “the master of the terrorist’s imagination” as the New York Magazine puts it, has been obsessed by the theme of terrorism before and after the 9/11 attacks. Since the tragic events of 9/11, the discourse of terrorism becomes a prominent theme in American Literature.
0 kommentar(er)
