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Title Impact of 9/11 Events on Contemporary English Novel

Author(s) Uzma Imtiaz

Abstract This study is an attempt to register the post 9/11 literary response to the terrorists' attacks on WTC and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. It aims to explore the aftermath of 9/11 and investigate how successfully contemporary writers have managed to portray the impact of these events on both American and Non-American societies. The research design for this study is qualitative and the resources used are novels written in the aftermath of 9/11 by both Muslim and Non-Muslim American writers, including The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid; Once in a Promised Land by Laila Halaby; Falling Man by Don DeLillo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The events of 9/11 engendered trauma throughout the world especially in the US, therefore trauma and terrorism are core topics in most post 9/11 novels. In order to answer my research questions, I have used the theoretical apparatus of Jean Baudrillard, the French social theorist, although my main theorist is Kali Tal, a literary trauma theorist, who considers the responses to traumatic experience, including cognitive chaos and the possible division of consciousness, as an inherent characteristic of traumatic experience and memory. For this purpose I have used Fairclough’s Discourse Analysis to look at the writings of American writers as representatives of fiction produced in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. This research focuses on the reactions and responses of American writers, taking as its premise that since Americans are the direct victims of the attacks, American writers have written more than any other nation. The focus of these writings is death, loss, trauma, mourning and violence and most of the survivors are injured and shell-shocked as a result of the death of a loved one. The focus is on how the different characters learn to deal with personal tragedy in the face of a national loss and the similarities and differences in the treatment given to the subject by Muslim and Non-Muslim writers.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2016-01-01

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