Exploitation of Grief
Jess Walter creates a post 9/11 world that balances precariously between real and surreal. It is real enough that the reader is able to comprehend how awful the attack truly was; but surreal enough that the reader feels the same way most Americans did at Ground Zero—confused, frightened, and grief stricken. Remy, the unwilling hero in all of this is exposed to many different forms of grief both public and personal. Using irony and satire, Walter critiques the way public forms of grief were presented as the only viable ways of grieving after 9/11. Reporters wanted to broadcast each and every loss. The government wanted to exploit the grief of the American people so that they could continue what they were doing in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq with the abuse of detainees and electronic eavesdropping, but this time in the name of “counterterrorism”. The Portraits in Grief and Edgar’s monologue about personal grief versus general grief are prime example of how grief during this time was commercialized.
After September 11, the New York Times ran a series called Portraits in Grief. What it was was “little cross-section obits of people who’d died that day—four or five every day, presumably until their inventory ran out” (144). Walter paints this series in a negative light. Walter’s satirical critique of April’s interaction with the reporters of the Times suggests that those who died were merely objects the Times used to manufacture grief in order to sell more copies. After the death of both her sister and husband in the World Trade Center attacks, April reads the Portraits in Grief in the Times like someone trying to lean a language: one with which to grieve. Like other people who read this section of the Times...
... middle of paper ...
.... The only way to comprehend something like this is to go through it. Otherwise, it’s just a number. Three thousand? Four thousand? How do you grieve a number?” (Walter 34)
Edgar believes that real grief is to truly feel the loss of a loved one both physically and mentally. To not just grieve their loss during the tragedy but to remember them years after and still feel that grief weighing down on you. While Edgar’s ironic grief is not really understandable to the reader, it does serve to highlight the problems that exist with public forms of grief. Edgar suggests that his unreal grief is more real than the supposed real grief of the reality television shows and those who did not directly experience the attacks. Walter’s representation of ironic grief and satirical representations of public grief serve to highlight the complexity of grieving after September 11.
In 102 Minutes, Chapter 7, authors Dwyer and Flynn use ethos, logos, and pathos to appeal to the readers’ consciences, minds and hearts regarding what happened to the people inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. Of particular interest are the following uses of the three appeals.
Imagine walking up on the scene of that fateful day of 9/11 knowing absolutely nothing apart from the talk around you, seeing the black smoke accumulating around the World Trade Centers, hearing the blare of sirens as the police cars accelerate by. Thomas Beller knew what all those things felt like. He was a simple pedestrian riding his bike going about his everyday life when he saw the black smoke, heard the sirens, and felt the whip of the police cars speeding by. Beller had no clue what was going on when he approached the scene, but in his personal narrative “The Ashen Guy” he explains his recollection of what he experienced on that historical day. Beller uses tones such as chaotic, nervous, confused, and worry to illustrate a picture of what it was like for him to approach the World Trade Center.
“September Elegies” is a poem written by an American poet Randall Mann in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi. It articulates a gloomy story about four young boys who took their own lives by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. The memorialization is a reminder of how cruel our world can be and how bigotry and indifference destroy people’s lives. The poet reveres their memory by making use of various literary devices in order to transmit the pain the boys experienced.
In “Whoever We Are, Loss Finds us and Defines Us”, by Anna Quindlen, she brings forth the discussion grief's grip on the lives of the living. Wounds of death can heal with the passing of time, but in this instance, the hurt lives on. Published in New York, New York on June 5, 1994, this is one of many Quindlen published in the New York Times, centered on death's aftermath. This article, written in response to the death of Quindlen’s sister-in-law, and is focused on an audience who has, currently is, or will experience death. Quindlen-a columnist for the New York Times and Newsweek, Pulitzer Prize winner and author-has written six bestselling novels (Every Last One, Rise and Shine, Object Lessons, One True Thing, and Black and Blue) and has been published in the New York Times and Newsweek.
The day was September 11th, 2001, a moment in history that will never be forgotten by any American living at the time. It was in the early morning hours on this day that our nation experienced the single most devastating terrorist attack ever carried out on American soil. Images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center, news coverage of buildings on fire, and images of building rubble will forever be imprinted into the history of this great nation. However, it was on one of the darkest days for America that one of the most impassioned speeches ever given by a United States president was spoken. President George W. Bush’s speech addressing the nation after the “9/11” attacks was infused with pathos through his imagery of destruction and
The passage is special because it identifies the emotion that the families and coworkers shared the moment they realized their loved ones were murdered. The passage relates to the author’s purpose in that chapter by emphasizing that all were affected as a result of the tragedy including tough and fearless CIA director Michael Hayden. The passage reflects the author’s style of including personal and emotional events of the characters in order to have the readers create an emotional bond with them.
When situations arise and people die or become ill a value has to be placed on their life to determine if they are going to be healed or if their family is going to be compensated for their loss. The value of life has a variety of interpretations based on the approach a person decides to take. Some people think of human life with an economic point of view which can led to certain deceased citizens receiving more money for accidents than others. The economic view also says that if a surgery is going to cost the government to much money then the person who needs the surgery should not get it. On the other hand, some people look at it emotionally and say that everyone should get an equal amount of money for incidents that occur. People who look
After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.
These two literary works, 40 Hours in Hell by Katherine Finkelstein and Third World by Dexter Filkins, both present diverse perspectives on what occurred during the World Trade Center attack. Although both texts approach the coverage of this attack differently, as reporters, they both base their news using normative theory. Normative theory is the consideration of what is morally correct or incorrect. In relation to normative theory is the Social Responsibility Theory. This theory deals with how an individual must complete their civic duty, since they are apart of the press, as well as their actions must benefit society. Nonetheless, of these two texts, 40 Hours in Hell best fulfills the requisites of the Social Responsibility Theory.
It is common for those experiencing grief to deny the death altogether. Many people do this by avoiding situations and places that remind them of the deceased (Leming & Dickinson, 2016). However, by simply avoiding the topic of death and pain, the mourner only achieves temporary relief while in turn creating more permanent lasting agony (Rich, 2005). In this stage, mourners will begin to feel the full weight of the circumstance. Whether the death of a loved one was sudden or long-term, survivors will feel a full range of emotions, such as sadness, guilt, anger, frustration, hopelessness, or grief. While many of these emotions can cause serious suffering, it is important for the survivor to feel whatever emotions come up and deal with those feelings, rather than trying to suppress any
September 11th 2001 was a monstrosity of a day filled with intense fear, heightened anxiety, and blood curdling screams. The Twin Towers, located in lower Manhattan, New York, were demolished by plane hijackers involved with the group Al-Qaeda. Two skyscrapers that had once seemed to reach for the clouds, now crumbled into dust. This series of events caused world-wide attention, and September 11th will be forever memorialized each year across the United States. Because of this new altitude resulting from this terrorist attack, many writers were motivated to illustrate the actions in their own way to explain their points of view on that bleak day. The authors conveyed the series of events with different attitudes, vocabulary, and writing styles. For instance, “9/11 Attacks” and “Leap” by Brian Doyle are two
Margulies, Joseph. 2013. What Changed When Everything Changed: 9/11 and the Making of National Identity. Yale University Press.
In Brian Turner’s poem “Jundee Ameriki” (American soldier), he gives gruesome details of a situation that triggered posttraumatic stress disorder in a soldier of war. The poem, written in 2009, addresses a suicide bombing which occurred during the War on Iraq in November of 2005. At first the poem shares the events of his doctor’s visit. While getting the shrapnel fragments removed, the soldier is quickly reminded of the horrific events that led to the injury. The poem then begins to describe the emotional effects of posttraumatic stress disorder. The narrator uses symbolism and the structure of the poem to demonstrate how the emotional pain of posttraumatic stress disorder is much greater than the physical pain it causes (even if the emotional
Deutsch’s narrative poem takes place on a train in “New York City, 2001,” stopping at places such as “Astor” and “Rector,” train stations in New York City with little significance in relation to the theme. Although the writer never mentions a particular disaster, Deutsch’s allusion implies that “the disaster” refers to the attacks on 9/11. Most, if not all,
Finally, on that rainy April morning, we made our way down to Ground Zero. As we entered the church, the smell of stale books and soggy clothing filled our noses. It was that smell of just coming out of a fresh rain, wet hair and wet faces surrounded us. Booths displaying medical stations, sleeping areas, and food stations were set up. They were frozen statues, the ghosts of the events that took place on September 11th and the weeks after. We shuffled through the pews and lined ourselves up at the front of the church.