Writing And Working-through

Don DeLillo (1936-) is one of the four most important novelists in contemporaryAmerica. His works always paint a detailed portrait of American life in the later20thand early21st centuries, with the theme on history, politics, cultural crises and others.Falling Man is his fourteenth novel, which was published in2007. This workconcerns the survivors of9/11and presents the impact of their experiences that day ontheir families and lives in the aftermath of the attacks, reputed as “a hymn for the NewYork of9/11, and its fallen”1by The Times.The literary critics abroad and at home paid little attention to Falling Man,mainly focusing on its theme of9/11, the influence of terrorist attacks, the choice ofthe title and its narrative structure. However, their explorations into the characters andtheir trauma didn’t go further to study the writing of that trauma, offering a researchgap for this novel. This thesis attempts to give a deeper analysis of Falling Man on itstrauma and narrative from the perspective of trauma theory, aiming to reveal thetrauma narrative in the novel could work through trauma for9/11survivors.The main body of the thesis consists of an introduction, four chapters and aconclusion. The introduction introduces Don DeLillo and Falling Man, and then liststhe reason, aim and significance to utilize trauma theory. Chapter one gives a generalaccount of trauma theory from four aspects—PTSD, literature, trauma fiction andtrauma narrative, reviewing its relationship with literary writing. Chapter two pointsout Falling Man is a trauma fiction and its characters are9/11survivors, while itsmale protagonist Keith’s traumatic responses are emphatically analyzed applying theconcepts of national trauma and PTSD. Chapter three is devoted to representing thecharacters’ trauma by means of narrative techniques and structure, clarifying FallingMan possesses a kind of trauma narrative. After studying trauma from theme and stylein the former two chapters, chapter four extends to discuss the function of that traumanarrative. Through the testimony and treatment of trauma in its narrative, Falling Man conveys the way to work through trauma with the participation of the readers. In theconclusion, an overall statement of the thesis is drawn to conclude that the traumanarrative of Falling Man is a combination of writing and working-through of9/11trauma, and that the author’s concerns for the survivors are also deeply expressed.