A Tale of Two Towers: Victims and Perpetrators in Don Delillo’s Falling Man and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Abstract

The article probes into the two different perspectives of the horrific 9/11 attacks. Every story has two sides, and the analysis of the two diverse novels- Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) will help to explore the ideas and misconceptions that rule us at a personal level which in turn contributes to our public outlook. Post the 9/11 attacks, there has been a dramatic change in the way the world views the Muslims, the “perpetrators”, and Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist perfectly captures the transition of New York after the attacks. Falling Man on the other hand delves into the deep-rooted havoc that the attacks have caused in the life of the survivors. The divide between the East and the West has never been more pronounced, and the paper implores into the role of literature in our understanding of the human psyche and public affairs. The paper aims at understanding what incites terrorism and what motivates terrorists and is humanizing them the need of the hour?