In Don DeLillo’s Falling Man, the main character Keith Neudecker finds both redemption and downfall throughout the aftermath of his experience during the incredibly traumatic day of September 11, 2001. The novel begins with a recreation of the moments just after the attack occurred. Keith was working in one of the towers and managed to escape the catastrophe with relatively minor physical injuries. What the doctors at the hospital that he later visited could not quantify or assess was his vast emotional damage.
As Keith emerges from the hazy cloud of rubble and debris, it is quite apparent that Keith is in a state of vertigo and mystification. He meets a man who offers him a ride, and in his confusion, he reverts to a primal, second-natured comfort of his wife and son (whom he has been separated from for a year and a half). Throughout his tenure in the residence, Keith maintains his “reticent” ways, as so described by his wife Lianne’s mother Nina. He does not discuss with Lianne the occurrences of 9/11. Instead, he bonds (sexually) with another woman named Florence whom Keith only met after the attack when he returned her briefcase that he had inexplicably taken home.
Perhaps the most upsetting aspect of Keith’s downfall occurs when he is deliberating whether he should or shouldn't tell Lianne about his brief affair with Florence. “He would tell her about Florence. She would say, After we’ve just renewed our marriage. She would say, After the terrifying day of the planes has brought us together again. How could the same Terror? She would say, How could the same terror threaten everything we’ve felt for each other, everything I’ve felt these past weeks” (Delillo 162). Keith knows that Lianne has fallen back in love with him, yet he decides to ignore the inconvenient fact by choosing a life of travel. Ultimately, Keith had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fully reconnect with his wife and son, yet his passing on that opportunity signifies his downfall as a husband and a father.
Fortunately for Keith, there is a selfish, personal redemption that emerges from the tragedy of 9/11. Prior to the accident, Keith tried his hardest to keep things simple and localized, “He had lived here (in his apartment) for a year and a half, since the separation, finding a place close to the office, centering his life, content with the narrowest of purviews, that of not noticing” (DeLillo 26). After several years spent living with Lianne and their son Justin, Keith finds himself traveling frequently to Las Vegas to participate in large poker games. As he expands from his sheltered, localized life and his small, weekly poker game with a few buddies, he finds true happiness as a professional poker player and traveler, but this selfish redemption comes at a high cost for his family, “There was no language, it seemed, to tell them how he spent his days and nights. Soon he felt the need to be back there (DeLillo 197).”
I chose the picture of the flag in the rubble because I loved the imagery of good/bad, and I think it really relates to the dual natured triumph/downfall of Keith’s life post-9/11.
2 comments:
Very good Blog. I think, however, you might do a bit more with redemption theme. When he goes back to the Towers at the end of the book, he remembers something. What is that? That memory is central to the possibility of redemption.
Campbell - Falling Man,
Your interpretation of Keith reverting to a primal need for his family was a bit confusing. Typically one would feel that a reversion to a primal urge would be that of self-preservation. This would not be unlike Keith’s normal disposition towards his wife. Perhaps, subconsciously he returned to a place of familiarity and comfort. Furthermore, he would be in the presence of people that he though could provide him with the ability to commiserate the events of 9/11 with. I felt that this was also his attempt to seek his own redemption or salvation, by returning to his family whom he left.
When Keith found Florence, He found the source of relief and understanding he initially sought. Florence and Keith were connected by the tragic event of that day. When they spoke of that day, they both could feel the choking dust, heat of the flames, and surreal view of bodies that had fallen form the towers. When Florence and Keith bonded sexually, this was more of the primal urage that one would experience to preserve life and linage. While Keith and Florence had a connection that he did not share with his wife, it could never survive outside the context of that day.
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