Terrorism is a global phenomenon. It is one of the serious issue that the society faces today. It considered as a major threat to society. In modern times, it is an issue of global concern and a much debated issue in all the countries of the world- developing or developed. It has now become more wide spread and more and more difficult to control.
Various legal systems and ruling authorities use different kind of definition for terrorism in their nationallegislation. There is no universally accepted definition of this crime. This situation arise from the fact that the term terrorism is politically and emotionally charged. We will probably never arrive at a perfect definition to which we can all agree, although it, does have characteristics to which we all point, like violence or its threat. Indeed the only defining quality of terrorism may be the fact that it invites argument, since the label ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorist’ arises when there is disagreement over whether an act of violence is justified. So in one sense, it may be fair to say that terrorism is exactly violence or the threat of violence in context where there will be disagreement over the use of that violence. But this does not mean that no one has tried to define terrorism!
In order to prosecute terrorist act or distinguish them from war and other violence that is condoned, national and international institutions, as well as others, have sought to define the term. While there is no one definition terrorism, international bodies such as the FBI have offered definition of terrorism and terrorist acts. Some definitions focus on terrorist tactics to define the term, while others focus on the actor. Yet others look at the context in which it was happenedor if it is military or not. Here are some of the most frequently cited definitions.
TheUnited States Department Of Defense defines terrorism “as the calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear ; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological”(Zalman). Within this definition there are three key elements, violence, fear, intimidation, and each element produces terror inits victims.
The word ‘terrorism’ is derived from the French wordterrorisme. The word terrorisme in turn derives from the Latin verb terrare meaning ‘to frighten’. The word ‘terrorism’ comes from the Reign of Terror instigated by Maxmilien Robespierre in 1793,following the French Revolution. Although terrorism originally referred to acts committed by a government, currently it usually refers to killing of the innocent people, for political purposes. This meaning can be traced back to Sergey Nechayev (a Russian revolutionary) who described himself as a terrorists, He formed the Russian terrorist group People’s Retribution. Terrorism has a very long history and its history is as old as human’s willingness to use violence to effect publics. Terrorism’s fascinating history is integral to the modern history of nations and states.
There are three perspectives of terrorism – the terrorists, the victim and the general public. There is a common phrase that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It is a view that terrorists themselves would gladly accept. They don’t see themselves as evils, they consider themselves as the freedom fighters, or combatants, fighting for what they believe in, they were ready to accept whatever means possible to attain their goals. According to them, they are the real heroes. But a victim of a terrorist attacks considered the terrorist as a criminal who destroyed their life. They become the part of terrorist attacks with no consideration for human life.
There are different ways of terrorist attacks. Modern groups had begun to use techniques such as hijacking, bombing, diplomatic kidnapping, and assassination to assert their demands and, for the first time, they appeared as real threats to Western democracies, in the view of politicians, law makers, law enforcement and researchers. The most common ways of terrorist attacks includes –bombing, kidnappings, hostage-takings, armed attacks and assassinations, arsons and firebombing, hijackings and skyjacking and so on. Bombing is the most common type of terrorist incidents. Typically explosive materials are inexpensive and they were easy to make. These bombs have a large destructive capabilities; an example is two American embassies in Africa were bombed by terrorists on August7, 1998. The attack killed over 200 people including 12 American citizens, and injured over 5,000 civilians. Modern explosive devices are smaller and are harder to detect.
Another type of terrorist attack iskidnappings and hostage takings. Sometimes, terrorists uses kidnapping and hostage-takings to make a bargaining position. Kidnapping is considered as one of the most difficult act for a terrorist group. But if a kidnapping is successful, it can gain terrorists money, release of their jailed comrades and able to provide publicity. Hostage-taking is the capturing of a facility or location and the taking of hostages. Unlike kidnapping, hostage-taking creates a situation of confrontation with the ruling authorities. It provokes the authorities to either take dramatic decisions and actions or to agree with the terrorists’ demands. It is direct and intended to gain media attention. Another method is armed attacks and assassinations are the killing of a selected victim. For this purpose, they use bombs or small arms. Usually terrorist have assassinated specific individuals for psychological effect. Arsons and firebombing are another ways of terrorist attacks. The devices that are used for this purpose are cheap and easy to hide. Arsons and firebombing are easy to conduct by any terrorist groups that may not be as well organized, equipped or trained as a major terrorist organization. Hijackings and skyjacking are becomemore commonly in the modern world. Hijacking is the capturing of a surface vehicle with its passengers or its cargo using force. Skyjacking is the taking of an aircraft, creates a mobile, hostage barricade situation.
Terrorists are very brutal and cruel in their operations. They act cold-bloodedly without any consideration to kindness, ethics and morality. Their sole aim is to cause destruction and damages. Terrorist attacks are mainly targeted to create fear and publicity and usually using explosives or poison. Violence is considered as the hallmark of terrorism. Different terrorist groups engaging in attacks to create wide spread anxiety or horror. To determine as terrorism an attack must have a political motive behind it. People choose terrorism when they have been stripped of their land or rights or denied these. For example The Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombed English targets in the 1980s, to make the point that they felt their land was colonized by British imperialists. Sometimes terrorist groups are formed as a reaction to governments’ particular move or decision. They are also emerged with the intention of bringing change in existing social set up in the larger interest of society. Theterrorist groups seeks political goals through the means of violence. The terrorists are very much influenced by the belief that violence or its threat will be effective or violent means will justify the ends.
Terrorism is typically described as a strategy of the weak seeking to gain advantage against stronger armies or political powers. The effect of terrorism includes the injuries, deaths and economic damages and so on. It also creates publicity for the groups or individuals starting attack, which is often their objective. Terrorism effect the society or the existing social system by causing serious law and order disorders and leads to disintegration of society. The incidents of murder, torture, mutilation, kidnapping and arsons are able to create an atmosphere of suspicion, fear, and panic all around the world. Life of all the people became uncertain. The terrorists kill the people including women and children, without any kind of mercy. Terrorism effect the economic system of a country on a large scale. It was sure that every terroristic event always killed the innocent people, destroyed public properties, as well as individual properties. A large amount of money has been needed to repair the loss of infrastructures. Some dates are never vanished in the world history, for instance, 9/11 for USA and 26/11 for Aamchi Mumbai. However, here are the top 10 unforgettable largest terrorist attacks ever. First one is Ma’a lot Massacre Terrorist Attacks. In Israeli history, May 15, 1973 is considered as the worst day and ablack day. This is because of the huge massacre happened there as it was the only Jewish state on the earth. More than 115 people were taken as hostages and out of them 25 were killed and 66 were injured. The terrorists who belonged to the Liberation of Palestine were responsible for this cruel terrorist attack. They managed themselves to enter the Jewish state very easily. This incident took Israel into mourn. Long years after this incident people still remember the bad glimpses of that day and the sufferings of the people. Another important incident was TWA Flight 841 Terrorist attacks. It is the worst terrorist attack in the air, it is not a Hi-jack. It is something more terrified and miserable attack than that. The day was September 8, 1974. The Flight flew as usual from Athens to Rom. In the middle it took a break and stopped in Greece for about 70 min to take off to reach the next destination, New York City International Airport. In matter of this journey time the plane suddenly crashed into the Lonian Sea. At first the engine failure was given as a reason and the blame was pushed on the pilot’s inefficiency. No sooner the bitter and shocking truth came out stating that this plane collapse was because of a bomb blast inthe plane. And the crash was a 100% terrorist bomb blast which belonged to the Abu Nadil Terrorist organization. Around 80 passengers travelled in this plane and none of them came back safely.
Another important one is Manhattan Attacks in 1997. One among the most well-known and famous nationalist group was Puerto Ricon FALN group. It was involved in terrorist activities in US. On August 3 a group of trained people entered Manhattan and ruthlessly attacked both US Defense builds and Mobile Oil building. The attacks registered very low amount of death and injured rate (8 injured and 1 dead, according to the reports). But it hit the defense capabilities and power and also caused financial loss. It was a threatening sign to the US army that remained as the scary and worst terrorist attack ever in the US defense history. Chechnya Border Attacks are also important. Chechnya is a border between Russia and European countries. March 24, 2001 is said to be a saddest day in Russia. At that time Russia was completely under the hold of the terrorists. These bomb blasts were continues in the form of3 cars. It did affect the peaceful European country as well, as the blasts were made exactly near the borders. Both the countries equally shared the killings and faced the doomed consequences. The entire bomb blasts resulted in 20 deaths and 100 injured people. Next important one is Anthrax attacks. Soon after the unexpected and the shocking WTC attack this attack took its way gradually. It started exactly after the one week of the WTC i.e. September 18; 2001. It had a slow start and steadily caused an impact after several weeks. It claimed the death of 5 innocent lives and injured 15 people. This was one of the most complicated cases to handle in the history; it was openly started by FBI officials. This attack didn't had bombs, weapons or anything else. It was just through letters that contained these anthrax spores. These letters were posted to the well positioned officials like Senators along with the media officers.
World Trade Centre was a center of attraction for all these terrorist attacks. Well before 9/11 incident the WTC already got a choke through bomb blasts on February 26, 1993. This was said to be a failure one as they aimed for twin towers attacks and missed their task. There was atruck placed in the basement parking of North Tower New York City. Miserably the truck was full of bombing materials. This was a failure attack as it didn't demolish the twin towers. But it was the first biggest attack to destroy the backbone of the US. Another one is Wall Street Bombing resulted in the death of 38 lives and 143 injured people in 16thSeptember 1920 at around 12.00 pm. The bomb shook the New York’s financial sector. The team behind it was not traced exactly but they has a strong doubt and guessed that Galleanists were the one who were this cruel attack. 26/11 Mumbai attacks are also important because it is the most fiery and weird attack that took place in the Indian history. The spot was India’s most famous and royal Hotel group Hotel Taj Mahal which is in the premises of Gate way of India. There was a 64 hours long battle between the Military forces and the terrorists. The date November 26, 2008 will remain in the forever as a black day in the Indian history. The Okahlama city bombing was happened in 19 April 1995 in Alfred.P. Murrah Federal building. This is the 2ndand the deadliest terrorist attack ever on the soil of America. Around 170 people were dead that included 20children and 680 more victims were injured. These are the most important terrorist attacks in the world history
The recent attack on Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir has raised serious concerns for India as 17 soldiers were killed and 23 more were injured. This is supposed to be the heaviest blow the army has suffered in a single incident since the insurgency began in the Valley in 1990 according to some observers. This is the 2ndattack on military establishment after the Pathankot air base attack. The needle of suspicion points to militant outfits from across the border after the four suicide bombers were killed during the counter attack by the Indian forces. The attack has enraged the country and the demand for action to counter these attacks is gaining momentum. This attack is traditional to India-Pakistan tensions. The Pakistani intentions are to bring India over to the negotiating table on Kashmir issue through talks. Pathankot incident has shown that a military target is good for a terrorist attack as it delegitimizes the army in front of its own people and enhances the profile of the terrorists as they take upon the might of a countryand succeed in it. These repeated incidents of assault are not being taken seriously. The Pakistani military may have a possible major role in this action because the details of battalions are mentioned by them as well and the attack at this crucial time can't be done without military inputs. Some military response or covert action is absolutely necessary for now to break out of these frequent attacks. What the political leadership needs to do here is to demonstrate its resolve while doing a cost benefit analysis about which path should be adopted. Our security architecture has been neglected for long and this has to be given due attention. It is high time now that India gets out of its strategic patience. India has to look into domestic part. Government has to safeguard the national security. The idea of isolating Pakistan may not be help much because many countries are investing in Pakistan.
Terrorism is among the most vital key words of our day and among the most fiercely contested.One cultures murderer is another's martyr: revolutionaries may also be freedom fighters. An often cited definition of terrorism was proposed byThomas Perry Thornton in 1964: terrorism entails “a symbolic act designed to influence political behavior by extra normal means, entailing the use or threat of violence”(Utz).The immediate damage wrought by such acts matters less than the effect they have upon the imagination of the people who witness them, especially through the media.
Given this dependence upon imagination and representation, it should come as no surprise that terrorism has served as a ready topic for fiction. The study of terrorism has been an active field of research in economics, political science, sociology and other related disciplines. Since the 1960s terrorism has its influence in the world of literature too.The nineteenth century was a fertile ground for violence intended to effect political change.In the 150 years since, there have been countless thrillers in which terrorists play the villain. Their secrecy, their remorseless tactics, their irrational desire to unmake our very world – all these suitable to our horrified fascination, and the straight forward use of terrorist- as- ultimate menace remains quite popular today in the works of such writers as Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum.
Alongside this robust tradition runs a parallel vein of fiction about terrorists in which suspense and violence are subordinated to larger political, philosophical, and aesthetic issues. Some novelists have focused on the social conditions that give rise to terrorists as a group, others have focused on the cultural and political systems that terrorist claim to oppose, some try to get inside of an individual terrorist’s head, either to explain or criticize, while others focus solely on the experience of being a victim of terrorism. Perpetrators and victims, causes and effects, social conditions and psychological roots, clearly the variations are endless. But what all these literary treatments have in common is a deeper curiosity about what terrorists might represent, both culturally and artistically. They are made to be more than a mysterious menace lying in wait to terrify us, instead terrorists are used to tell us something about ourselves, for better or worse.
There have been surprisingly few sympathetic treatments of terrorists over the years. Even two novelists of such opposing philosophical perspectives as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Joseph Conrad were able to share a contempt towards the terrorist of their day, the anarchists. In Demons, Dostoevsky allows Stephan Trofimovich a death-bed conversation and seeming redemption; the anarchists led by Stephan’s son, however, all end up dead or in prison. Demon was first published in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1871-2. It is the third of the four great novels written by Dostoevsky. It is a social and political satire, a psychological drama and a large scale tragedy. In the Secret Agent, Conrad’s protagonist is ordered to destroy the Greenwich Observatory but manages only to get his simple brother-in-law blown to bits. The secret agent’s unfortunate wife kills him in anger over her lost brother and then takes her own life; no lasting change is effected by the bombing.
The Secret Agent is a simple tale by Joseph Conrad, published in 1907. The story is set in Landon in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country. This novel is one of Conrad’s later political novels. This novel deals with anarchism, espionage and terrorism. Because of its terrorism theme, it was noted as one of the three works of literature most cited in the American media, two weeks after the September 11 attacks. This novel based up on an actual terrorist attempt on the Royal Observatory in 1894, when a French anarchist accidentally blew himself upon in Greenwich Park before reaching his target. This is given a darkly ironic vision by Conrad, whereby the symbols of trade and new technology have come under terrorist attack. The Secret Agent surely merits revisiting in the 21stcentury. In fact in the three years following the September 11 attacks and their unparalleled murderousness in non-state sponsored or asymmetric terrorism.
Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist would seem at first blush a counter-example; when it was published in 1985, it was hailed as an utterly convincing depiction of a terrorist cell from the inside. The Protagonist, Alice Mellings, is a young English communist who has dedicated herself to fighting the injustices of modern capitalist society. She and her comrades in the Communist Centre Union are desperate, both individually and collectively, to prove themselves serious and committed to the cause. One of the book’s strengths lies in its depiction of small group’s dynamics; Lessing makes the process leading up to the house’s decision to embrace terrorism- as a means of proving themselves to the Irish Republican Army seem both natural and unavoidable. But Lessing also uses her psychological acuity togive us insights into the characters that they are incapable of having themselves; she implies that they are misleaded, subject to motivations and passions much more psychosexual than political.In the end, these would be terrorists prove almost comically beneath their task, when they decide toplant a car-bomb in London, they have a minor accident on the way to the target site, putting them fatally behind schedule. One of the group is killed along with four bystanders killed and twenty three injured. Alice for her maternal instincts, is strongly dispassionate about bombing, convincing herself that she hadn’t really been supportive of it. It is this emotional and moral disconnect that forms the basis of Lessing's damning condemnation: the good terrorists lack self-awareness to the point of of overlooking the suffering of real people.
Though many novelists display a certain contempt for terrorists, some hint at affinities as well as differences between the terrorist and the artist. Henry Jame’s 1886 novel, The PrincessCasamassima is an early example. James was drawn to the idea of seething subterranean group, waiting to rise up in revolution. But the hero of his novel, Hyacinth Robinson, is as much an artist as a revolutionary. Though Hyacinth is desperate to prove himself a sincere revolutionary, his exposure to the movement is concurrent with his exposure to the life of the haute –bourgeoisie as well. And in the end, James’ hero decides it is better to erase himself than to destroy the beautiful culture he has come to appreciate under the titular princess’ tutelage. But if James was confident in the power of art to overcome its political enemies, artists today are more often united by their shared perception of political impotence; they bemoan their inability to remake the world as they see fit and feel threatened by a political structure that does not understand or appreciate them. This alienation has led some recent novelists to treat the relationship between terrorism and art with more anxiety than confidence or contempt. Such novelists express a kind of competition with terrorists, not in blind admiration but with a sense of having been surpassed or made outdated by the ability of a lone bomber to effect radical change.
Such is a central theme of a recent book,Plotting Terror: Novelists and Terrorists in Contemporary Fiction, by Margaret Scanlan. Scanlan argues that writers face a reduced political role in an age of mass media and virtual environment. In response, postmodern writers have re-envisioned terrorists as their doubles or rivals; if bombs are dangerous, so is the power of the written word as a political act.A key text for Scanlan’s argument is Mao (1992) by Don DeLillo. A darling of college radicals, this book makes much of the theoretical connections between post-modern novelists and terrorists: “there is a curious knot that blinds novelists and terrorists…years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of a culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated”. These are the words of the protagonist Bill Gray, a famously reclusive and paranoid writer. Bill is drawn away from his unfinished novel and the assistant who manipulates him to keep it unfinished by the chance to aid a young writer held hostage in war-torn Beirut. Surely artist and terrorist will meet in a final reckoning? But DeLillo keeps his protagonist wickedly distanced from the action, and in the end, the novelist dies anonymous and alone from injuries sustained in an accident, having never confronted the terrorists face to face.
Readers are familiar with Chuck Palahniuk’s Flight Club (1996) and Anne Patchett’s Bel Canto (2002). Both novels focus carefully and sympathetically on the terrorists behind the violence. In neither novel are the terrorists meant to be contemptible or incompetent; the threat they pose in very real. Beyond these similarities, of course, the two novels are radically dissimilar. In Bel Canto, art is allowed to triumph over ideology, even though the story ends tragically. An opera diva is first used to lure a Japanese executive to a poor Latin American country and is then trapped with the executive when terrorists take them all hostage. The great irony in Patchett’s book is that the diva is the one who eventually holds everyone captive, including the terrorists, through her beautiful singing. Patchett succeeds in creating true sympathy with her terrorists by making them seem very human, even lovable; we feel for them without ever sharing their cause. But like the terrorists presented by Conrad, James and Lessing, they are tragically done in. In Flight Club, we find one of the rare depictions of a terrorist who is allowed the last word – a terrorist whose acts of destruction are meant to elicit administration rather than scorn.
Indeed, since 9/11 it has become much harder to sustain either confident dismissal of terrorism as a threat or ironic acceptance of it as a political or aesthetic act. The literary depictions of terrorism that have emerged after the 19thcentury have been much more sober. Though they give reason for hope, and even transcendence, they do so with a sense vulnerability rather than contempt or cynicism. And they do this by focusing less on the terrorists and more in their victims. The two recent books that demonstrate vulnerability are Saturday by Ian McEwan, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Both novels rely heavily on their protagonists. McEwan gives us Henry Perowne, middle-aged neurosurgeon, in a detached, third-person omniscient narrative; McEwan’s style is strict realism bordering on naturalism. Foer’s book depends upon the enthusiastic, inventive, and expressive voice of Oskar Schell, a nine year old who lost his father in the World Trade Centre attacks.
Foer also includes a variety of graphic elements, including a now – famous series of photographs, presented here in flip –book fashion, in which a man who jumped from the World Trade Centre towers ascends back into the heavens. Perowne is a man who is accustomed to complete mastery of his environment; his expertise even allows him to explain our emotions and experiences in strictly chemical and physical term. The looming sense of unease in Saturday drives from the fact that this man at the top of the social pecking order no longer feel secure. The terrorist attacks and the looming Iraq invasion in which Britain will take, lurk in the back of Perowne’s mind through the book, so that when he and his family are threatened by a local, irrational thug, we are able to draw a ready parallels to the threat to civilization posed by terrorism.
Nine year old boys are of course more familiar with feeling of being out of control; these feelings are only exasperated for Oskar by the loss of his father in the attacks. A particularly poignant motif of Foer’s book is Oskar’s recurring attempts to rewrite the day of September 11th; if only he could invent a shirt made of birdseed, for example, perhaps the pigeons of New York could come to the aid of anyone wearing it and fly them to safety. Oskar undertakes a quest to understand his father and more importantly, his death through an over interpretation of clues his father left behind.
Both Perowne and Oskar are figures for loss and both protagonist reach a kind of understanding by book’s end, but Oskar’s resolution involves more emotional maturity. For it is finally by letting go that Oskar is able to transcend, rather than by putting greater faith in his ability to rationalize, respond and control all variables. If Henry Perowne’s faith in himself has been shaken, it survives by book’s end. Oskar’s faith, though only subtly spiritual, lies in something outside himself, and that surely is one of the most important lessons that stories about terrorism have to teach us. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close deals with its direct effect upon on one family.
The novel begins sometimes after that fateful day that is the day after 9/11. Thomas Schell, father, son and husband perished in the attack, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is narrated by his son, Oskar. It is interspersed with letters from Oskar’s grandfather to his son, Thomas and letters from Oskar’s grandmother to Oskar. Together it tells the history of this family, and the pain and suffering caused by the loss of their loved one. Oskar is a highly intelligent boy. Fortunately, Jonathan Safran has created a character who is painfully real. Despite his intelligence that gives him a better understanding of the physical and historical aspects of the world, Oskar retains the emotions, confusion and exasperation of a nine year old. His intelligence, curiosity, fear and insight he gains on his quest throughout the city are both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
Foer's novel is not a perfect one. In addition to the oddities in Oskar’s grandfather’s chapters the book is full of photos and drawings, all things that Oskar collected in his attempt to understand his world. Among these, there is a photo of a body falling from one of the towers, one which Oskar enlarges to see if may be it was his dad. This novel can be uplifting and soul searing at different times. With the horrors and wounds of the 9/11 attack still fresh, this novel may hit too close to home for some people. By the end of the book, how that awful day happened for all members of Oskar’s family is known, and beyond the pain lies hope and Oskar is not as he thinks he is. This novel is a perfect example for trauma literature. Trauma is everywhere in this novel. The 9/11 attacks are the prime example of trauma which affects every main character. On a large scale the novel tackles post 9/11 America without questioning the attacks of the ethics of its aftermath (The War on Terror).
These novels are the perfect examples for the relationship between literature and terrorism. There are also many other novels, poems and dramas which are emerged after the 9/11 attack. When the city Landon was burned into ashes in the 17thcentury, one of the poets said that let the city of Landon be ablaze again and again, so the literary world shall get more and more poems. Similarly, when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mercilessly destroyed by Atom Bomb, another poet responded by saying that the reality has occupied the place which was owned by imagination. These two responses are enough to show the each otherness of literature and terrorism. In the history of literature, all great disasters are contributed to the birth of great literary works. Writers like Primo Levi and Elie Wiesal were raised from the smoke of Holocaust. Likewise, Langston Hughes and Ameeri Barakka were acquired their energy to write from the slavery and racialism that existed in their society. The emergence of the Palestinian poet Mahmood Dharveesh is too not different from those writers.
9/11 is also not different from these disasters. It also contributed many literary works to the world of literature. It too brought the effect of trauma to millions in America and throughout the world. Initially the attacks created a sense of paralysis and a narrative void. The distinguished writers of trauma confront September 11 from a variety of personal, cultural, scholarly and conical perspectives. Judith Greenberg’s Trauma at Home: After 9/11 is an example for such novels. The writing bringing together wide-ranging reflections on understanding, representing and surviving trauma, the book offers readers an array of analyses of the overwhelming events. Trauma at Home contains meditations on the personal and cultural after effects of trauma and provides analyses of the historical echoes of Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and Vietnam that the attack evoked. Collectively this essays replace the silence of shock and disbelief with the possibility of dialogue, even as they also recognize the impossibility of providing a single cohesive narrative for the trauma of September 11. Trauma Culture by E. Ann Kaplan is considered as another example for this type of writings. In thisTrauma Culture E. Ann Caplan explores the relationship between the impact of trauma on individuals and on entire cultures and nations. Both Ann Kaplan and Judith Greenberg were focused on how society and media responses to the traumas. The lines from the poem First Writing Since by Suheir Hammad is also important in this situation, she wrote
There have been no words.
I have not written one word.
No poetry in the ashes south of Canal Street.
No prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and DNA.
Not one word… (Inmotionmagazine.com)
First Writing Since us a poem describing her reaction to the September 11 attacks. She is the author of Born Palestinian, Born Black and other books. First Writing Since is a poem mentions about the 9/11 incidents.
According to Americans, September 11 is an unforgettable day. When we consider the harm to people, Indian Union Carbide demolition is larger than World Trade Centre attack. It was caused by an irresponsible American man. But it was ignored by the Western media. They gave no importance to this incident. But they still consider the 9/11 as the horrible cruelty towards the Americans. An important novel after 9/11 is Don DeLillo’s The Falling Man. He is an American novelist, playwright and essayist. His works have covered with the subjects like global terrorism. The protagonist of the novel is Keith. Death is prominent in this novel, especially senseless in relation to acts of terrorism. The haunting image of death is ever –presented in Keith’s mind, as well as in the thoughts of Keith’s friends who survived the attack. Having seen the destruction, the falling bodies, his crushed and burnt friends, Keith does not fear death but rather wonders what life is all about. In some ways, Keith's thoughts of death are similar to those of the terrorists. The terrorists, in DeLillo’s interpretation committed themselves to death for a cause they believed was for the better good. In this way death takes on a different meaning. Death becomes a means to an end and it becomes something different after he has escaped the tower. Death has thrown Keith into a different world. This book is above all a meditation on the impact of 9/11 and how it still, even know, haunts the American psyche. The falling man is a character, who unlike other characters, definitely wants to remember the tragedy he witnessed. His simulation of what he saw on that fateful day is a way of helping both himself and everybody else to remember the horror of what he saw, recreating the emotions people experienced as they saw people flinging themselves from the top floor of the World Trade Centre.
The title of The Falling Man works on several levels. It refers to the main character, Keith, who survives the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, but feels disconnected from the world. It also refers to the famous photograph of The Falling Man taken by Richard Drew, which shows an unidentified man falling head-first from the burning Towers. This photograph became an iconic representation of the pain and suffering brought about by the attack. The author is using these characters to present America as a whole, and so examining the changes can reveal the changes hat DeLillo believes occurred in America as a whole. Keith feels isolated and misunderstood by those around him, even his wife. Perhaps, can therefore use Keith to comment on the way that DeLillo believes America post 9/11, changed. America suddenly forced was forced to realize how vulnerable it was, and it changed forever, trying to process the terrorist attacks that struck at its very heart and finding itself asking big questions about life and death that it had never had do before.
All literary works caused by the 9/11 focused on the prominent theme ‘falling’. The twin towers of Word Trade Centre is considered as the symbol of capitalist America. Some of the writers considered the demolition of twin towers in America as the falling of Adam in the Christian beliefs. By eating the forbidden fruit, there is an evolution of Adam from the primary innocence to the world of knowledge and experience. Similarly 9/11 destroyed the childish innocence of America and brought it into the bravery of experience. Many novels deals with how our perception of the world has changed because of 9/11, like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
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