The Spectacle of Terror and Media Sensationalism in Post-9/11 Literature

Abstract

This thesis explores four works of literature dealing with the September 11 attacks, namely Don DeLillo’s Falling Man, Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World, Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers and Amy Waldman’s The Submission, and reflects on how they portray different aspects of the event. Two main aspects of the event are taken into consideration: the attacks themselves and the reaction they elicited from journalists; concepts and terminology pertaining to the field of performance studies (PS) are employed to link the two together and analyze the entire event as a performance staged before an audience. The novels Falling Man and Windows on the World deal with the former aspect, their main characters having firsthand experience of the attacks, which are described in a detailed and realistic manner. Additionally, both novels are of interest to the field of trauma studies, as they contain elements suggesting that psychological trauma is being experienced (or has been experienced) by their characters. The spectacle of the attacks is also the subject of Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, a work of comics which relates its author’s experience of the attacks and their aftermath. Unlike other works covered in this thesis, In the Shadow of No Towers ditches realism in favor of a more creative approach to its subject matter, which consists of visual puns and imaginative reinterpretations of the imagery of the attacks. Finally, Waldman’s The Submission deals with the latter aspect, with the author making use of one of her characters, Alyssa Spier, to satirize mainstream American media’s sensationalistic coverage of the attacks. Waldman’s portrayal of journalism is overwhelmingly negative, with particular emphasis being put on the simplistic (and typically negative) representation of Islam and on the negative consequences that this narrative has on the Muslim community in the United States.