A Study Of Falling Man From The Perspective Of Postmodern Realism

Falling Man published in2007was written by the distinguished contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo. The novel was based on the9/11terrorist attack that shocked the world. The book had grand historical background but the author adjusted his perspective to a small aperture:He revealed synecdochically the great loss and psychological trauma brought about by the9/11event by focusing on the life and Psychological experience of the common New York couple. At the same time, the description of terrorists and a performance artist called "Falling Man" was integrated into the narrative exquisitely, thus leading to DeLillo’s unique interpretation of the9/11event. The studies on this literary work concentrate mainly on the theme of traumatic memory and its healing, or the postmodern creation techniques. This thesis develops a new style, analyzing the novel from the perspective of postmodern realism.Postmodern realistic novels incarnate writers’ deep concern about history and reality but at the same time they transcend the concept of "reality" existing in traditional realistic novels, showing reality in the "postmodern context". This kind of works inherit the merits of putting stress on characterization and story-telling, while taking advantage of the fully-developed aesthetic and creation techniques from modernist and postmodernist novels, thus forming distinctive features. To a certain extent, postmodern realistic novels represent a new development of realism in postmodern context.The novel revealed from unique angle and with delicate strokes the inner world of9/11survivors, mourned the victims in the attack and condemned terrorism as well as the domestic and foreign policies of American government. DeLillo focused on people’s psychological disturbance, created vivid characters that harbor inner contradictions, wove the stories around the characters and depicted the critical moment when the plane manipulated by terrorists hit the North Tower. At the same time, the narrative structure and some creation techniques in the novel contained significant characteristics of postmodernist literature. But those creation techniques and strategies were in the service of manifesting people’s real state of mind and living condition in contemporary society. Accordingly, the novel embodied the features of postmodern realism. This thesis consists of five parts:an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion.The introduction part introduces briefly the author and his writing style, the main plots of Falling Man, the literary review of the novel and the theoretic basis of the thesis: postmodern realism in literatureThe first chapter interprets the postmodern realistic themes in Falling Man. The novel indicates that the terrorist attack had left dispersing psychological trauma among people. The author reflected on terrorism and at the same time pointed out that human warmth still existed even in the shadow of terrorist attack.The second chapter analyzes that the novel created typical characters under the postmodern realistic view of vision:They suffered from psychological crises but made interior reconciliation and spiritual seek to adapt to the reality.The third chapter explores the writing techniques of the Falling Man:the employment of repetition and parallel montage deconstructed regular narrative structure of the novel and reconstructed DeLillo’s own interpretation of the9/11event as well as the image of the terrorists, which helped highlight the themes while giving the readers fresh aesthetic experience.It is pointed out in the conclusion that although the definition of postmodern realism in realism is not quite explicit until now, which will not prevent us from assessing Falling Man by applying the basic features of postmodern realism—this will be a constructive and beneficial attempt.This thesis analyzes Falling Man from the perspective of postmodern realism. The thesis aims to illustrate that DeLillo showed his concern about postmodern realistic themes, told vivid stories and created typical characters by applying multiple artistic techniques. Therefore, Falling Man incarnated the creation principles of postmodern realistic novels. Postmodern realism has laid a new way for the study of Falling Man. It is hoped that interpreting the novel from this new perspective will broaden the readers’horizon and deepen our understanding of postmodern realism in literature.