TERRORISM AND THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVEL: A POSTMODERNIST APPRAISAL OF DON DELLILO’S FALLING MAN (2007) AND JOHN UPDIKE’S TERRORIST (2006)

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Author

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Department of Arts

Terrorism centres on both the tactic and strategy to commit acts of violence. It is viewed as a method of combat. It is a means to achieve certain targets. Terrorist acts aim to induce a state of fear in the victims which are not necessarily the actual targets of the terrorists. The terrorist events on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States of America on September 11, 2001 have drawn the attention of many American writers. Writing about these terrorist events evolved into a field known as terrorism and America writing. This study discusses Don Dellilo‘sFalling Man (2007) and John Updike‘s Terrorist (2006) as Contemporary American novels that show awareness of terrorism. The study is a qualitative research that limits itself to two texts, Falling Man and Terrorist. This study adopts postmodernist framework as the theoretical basis for the assessment of characters and societal issues in the selected texts and how they grapple with such issues as violence, infidelity, and characters reaction to the economic state of America, poor housing and poor educational system as reasons to commit acts of violence. The study proceeds on the assumption that offering an aesthetic representation on these issues demonstrates the writers craft in creating a distinct mode of reading the event. As such using postmodernisttools in reading post 9/11 novels creates a critical view on how these events that are not only violent but appear irrational and complicated become a discourse worthy of literary study. Based on the above premise, this study finds out that most issues discussed in both texts in many ways indict America and its way of handling socio-cultural, economic and political issues. The study also finds that in order to be heard and to draw attention to America‘s way of life, terrorists resolve to commit terrorist activities.