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9/11 Can Never Be Forgotten

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Why 9/11 Can Never Be Forgotten

“The same picture over and over. Planes going into buildings. Bodies falling. People waving shirts out of high windows. Planes going into buildings. Bodies falling. Planes going into buildings. People covered in gray dust…” (Foer 203). This excerpt from the book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, provides Oskar’s Grandmother’s first-hand account on the September 11th terrorist attacks. Although the passage is daunting, it does not do the horrific incident justice. It is one thing to hear about these events, but it is another thing to personally witness it. Mark Twain once said, “Actions speak louder than words,” which still stands true today. Nothing provides proper credibility and awareness to someone, …show more content…

Although the buildings are falling and the planes are crashing, there are no images of ever seeing anyone die, besides “The Falling Man” and other jumpers. With a first look at the image, the audience immediately puts themselves in his shoes; trapped in a building full of smoke and fire with very few ways out, knowing this is the end. With this in mind, the viewer contemplates what choice they would make. Would they join “The Falling Man?” This, unlike the other photos of 9/11, provides a personal connection that the many other images lacked. In Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar examines the image of “The Falling Man” and contemplates these similar ideas; assuring himself that falling would be a lot less painful then burning to death (Foer 256-257). When looking at the photo, the man seems to be at peace before his time of death. His clothes are on him properly, his body is not flailing, and he seems to be almost …show more content…

Excluding events that happen through a disaster, leads to a falsification of the disaster and allows the viewer to continue to ignore the severity, as discussed earlier. In Chris Vanderwees’s article, Photographs of Falling Bodies and the Ethics of Vulnerability in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, he states, “censorship is never a viable suggestion and only leads to ignorance and repression, ultimately obscuring the historical record of any given event” (Vanderwees 179). Through the repression of images like “The Falling Man,” and others that are considered too graphic, the realistic aspect of the disaster is tainted and is not expressed to the truest form. This continues to provide viewers with Kaplan’s idea of “empty empathy” (Kaplan 93-95). However the exposure of these “taboo” images forces viewers to comprehend the reality of the attacks at a more personal level. Vanderwees continues in his article, stating that although the images of falling bodies is contextualized differently among individuals, they collectively bring what had been repressed back into the reader/viewer’s consciousness (Vanderwees 181). Through the use of these images, viewers are more capable and inclined to stop repressing the reality of what occurred. Rather then looking at the September 11th attacks as an attack on The World Trade Center, the

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