September 11, 2001 can be, and, perhaps, more often than not is, regarded as a turning point in the history of the United States � its politics, its version of diplomacy, its understanding of terrorism, violence, and catastrophe, its popular culture, its literature. While novelists have been slow to respond to the events of September 11, works of fiction have begun to be produced. Codification ... read moreof the ways in which September 11 has been contextualized has tended to constrict understanding of the attacks to monolithic mass narratives that defy individual experience. In my thesis, I analyze the ways in which these narratives have been constructed and also the ways in which novelists have struggled against them in works of fiction. As such, the primary works explored in this thesis are Don DeLillo's "Falling Man" and Philip Roth's "Exit Ghost." Through the analysis of these texts and the rejection of monolithic mass narrative, a richer and more complex understanding of September 11 can arise.read less
