Representing the Incomprehensible

Criticism of Michael Herr’s Dispatches (2015) and Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) can be divided into two mainstream interpretations. On the one hand, they are both marked as psychic trauma texts. Herr’s writing of Dispatches can be read as a therapeutic process that allows him to deal with his trauma experienced as a war correspondent during the Vietnam War. The intimate and domestic trauma in DeLillo’s Falling Man focuses on the disconnected lives of a couple and their child in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center. On the other hand, critics have aligned each text with the national trauma narrative. This article aligns itself with the latter interpretation. I propose, through a postmodern reading, that the national trauma narrated in both Dispatches and Falling Man is an example of Lyotard’s “incredulity toward metanarratives” (xxix). I argue that both texts represent the failure of the metanarrative of American Exceptionalism; the ideology that defines the essence of America as the embodiment of “supremacy” and “power”. Narrative fails in each text when the nature of each conflict deconstructs this metanarrative of national identity. This deconstruction arises from the way conflict appears to alienate Herr as author, and DeLillo’s characters from preconceived notions of knowledge. As a result of this, both authors explore the fictive nature of the human condition to present the national trauma caused by each conflict.

CULTURAL DICHOTOMY: A STUDY OF DELILLO’S FALLING MAN

The study is designed to take out the point of view of the Muslims living in America after the 9/11 attack. The Muslims received a harsh treatment after the attack especially those who are living in America and they can very well relate and give the first-hand account of the behavior of the occident. The study is carried out by taking into account Said’s model of Orientalism. The cultural dichotomy or divide became the order of the day at that time which is explored in the research objectives part. Textual analysis is done to carry out the research. The text is studied thoroughly and instances of the cultural dichotomy between the orient and the occident are explored which led to the conclusion that the amalgamation of the orient and occident is not possible not even soon as there is white supremacy which does not allow people of any culture to excel.

POST-9/11 TRAUMATIC PARANOIA AS REFLECTED IN DON DELILLO’S FALLING MAN

This article investigates how the trauma of 9/11 tragedy affects the lives of the characters in DeLillo’s Falling Man and shows how the trauma of 9/11 portrayed in the novel reflects American collective trauma. This investigation is qualitative research utilizing memory and trauma as the theoretical framework. The discussion in this article reveals that individual experience the trauma of 9/11 tragedy differs from one person to another. While other characters go through their mourning successfully, the main character in the novel becomes a perennial mourner and is ceaselessly haunted by his traumatic memory due to constant avoidance from his trauma. His continuous externalization of his trauma causes him to focus on the external threats and becomes a paranoiac. On a societal level, American society is also perpetually mourning and is haunted by post-traumatic paranoia continuously. American exceptionalism, biased orientalist perspective about the orient, and alleged prolonged quasi war between Islam and the west have framed the collective experience of the trauma in binary opposite narrative of a good versus evil war. The collective trauma perpetuates and many policies are born out of their paranoia.Keywords: 9/11 tragedy; memory; mourning; post-traumatic paranoia; trauma