A Tale of Two Towers: Victims and Perpetrators in Don Delillo’s Falling Man and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist


Keywords:
Terrorism, Post-9/11 reactions, Islam, War on Terror, Vulnerability, Oppression, Power, MulticulturalismAbstract
The article probes into the two different perspectives of the horrific 9/11 attacks. Every story has two sides, and the analysis of the two diverse novels- Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) will help to explore the ideas and misconceptions that rule us at a personal level which in turn contributes to our public outlook. Post the 9/11 attacks, there has been a dramatic change in the way the world views the Muslims, the “perpetrators”, and Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist perfectly captures the transition of New York after the attacks. Falling Man on the other hand delves into the deep-rooted havoc that the attacks have caused in the life of the survivors. The divide between the East and the West has never been more pronounced, and the paper implores into the role of literature in our understanding of the human psyche and public affairs. The paper aims at understanding what incites terrorism and what motivates terrorists and is humanizing them the need of the hour?
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References
DeLillo, Don. Falling Man: New York: Picador, 2007. Print
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. London: Penguin Books, 2008. Print.
Critical Outakes: Mohsin Hamid on Camus, Immigration, and Love.Bookcriticks.org. The National Book Critics Circle, 30 Mar. 2007. Web. 14 Aug. 2012.
Gray, Richard. After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Print.
Shirane, Haruo. Terrorism, Culture, and Literature. PMLA 117.3 (2002): 513. Print.
Versulys, Kristiaan. 2009. Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Colombia University Press, Print
“The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” Wikipedia, 28 June 2012. Web. 7 July 2012.
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