A Neo-realistic Interpretation Of Falling Man

Don DeLillo, the first American winner of Jerusalem Prize, is an avant-garde writer inAmerican literature and also listed in the four contemporary literary giants, together withThomas Pynchon, Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy. Up to now, he has won prestigiousawards, such as National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Award in Literature from theAmerican Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Saul Bellow award. Hisfourteenth novel Falling Man, published in2007, has aroused a large number of massmedium and readers’ close attention and fervent passion for research, which is thought to beon a par with DeLillo’s another epoch-making masterpiece, White Noise.Falling Man depicts emotional disturbance of an ordinary American family andpsychological trauma of the public after the9/11terrorist attacks. The novel presents thepanorama of American social life in the age of post-9/11, and severely re-examines anddeeply analyzes the abuses of American culture. DeLillo carries on the realist tradition ofsubmitting to reality, shows his loyalty to histories and directly reflects social phenomena.Besides, he retains colorful language features and free narrative construction of postmodernistfictions. Such a writing mode, namely combining the features of both realism andpostmodernism, precisely corresponds to the comprehension of neo-realism in the field ofliterature criticism. This thesis attempts to interpret DeLillo’s Falling Man from theperspective of neo-realism, and aims at revealing the neo-realistic themes and exhibiting thepostmodernist artistic features of the novel.There are totally five chapters in this thesis:The first chapter is a brief introduction to Don DeLillo, his works and the plot of FallingMan. Then both national and international researches are clearly illustrated. And theorganization and significance of this thesis are expounded.The second chapter provides the theoretical foundation. This chapter mainly illustratesthe origin, general understanding and features of neo-realism.In Chapter Three, neo-realistic themes of Falling Man are interpreted with more detailedanalyses. The novel exposes many social realities, including modern terrorism and Americanpolicies, psychic trauma after the9/11event and impact on traditional religion. In addition,DeLillo has created several representative characters to deepen the themes and reflect socialrealities.In Chapter Four, neo-realistic features of Falling Man are chiefly analyzed, basicallyfrom three angles including language features, narrative structure and DeLillo’s anti-herocharacters.The last chapter is conclusion part. It should be pointed out that, although there is noexplicit definition of neo-realism in literature, it cannot be denied that a bold attempt to deconstruct Falling Man from the angle of neo-realism will be a meaningful exploration.