Hi bloggers!
It’s been a while since we shared our last blogs! In the first and second of week in this term we finished reading the book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. In this blog I will first post my POV on “What is the significance of Setting the background in 9/11 attack rather than a car accident”
The book is written by Janathan Safran Foer in which a young boy, Oskar, lose his father because of terrorists’ attack on World trade centre. While the book focus on the process of searching for the locker of the key left by his father, Thomas Jr, it is also talk about the trauma experienced by grandma, grandpa as well as others such as those who share Black as their last name. During reading I feel that the trauma is more than an individual issue as “How a young boy memorize and search connection with his father” rather than dig 9/11 from the angel of politics or national defence. This is what differentiate the books from the mass media. But a question arised as “Will it be difference if his father didn’t die in a historical event but a ordinary accident?”.
On average in 2012, 92 people were killed on the roadways of the U.S. each day, in 30,800 fatal crashes during the year. Although the trauma left by those trauma can not be measured, but obviously the 2996 lives pale when compared to the number of those get killed in car accidents. The first thing 9/11 left to us is a community in which victims, both the dying people and mourning ones, supported each others and fight together in going through mental illness and sharing the same grievance and affliction. Poeple doing their condolence in their own way. However, their ceremonies of memozing their beloved are somewhat link together, thus feeling less painful. Such as the relationship between Mr. Black and Ruth, both of whom suffered from the pain of losing lovers and chose not to leave a place conveying their memories. It is rumoured that Patriotism is promoted in America. That is to say, Americans draw the distiction bewteen “we” and “them” and enforce their identities and this is what makes the trauma more powerful and curring process meaningful.
Another significance is the conjuction between what is right or wrong. Dying from a car accident is a matter of fate, nevertheless, dying from a terrorist attack is a matter of crime and guilty. The 9/11 attacks did have significant impact. They highlighted the global significance of non-state actors and radical Islam. They alerted the country to the vulnerability of our way of life.
Thank you for reading!