Don Delillo Falling Man Analysis

Falling Man
On 11th of September America was in chaos due to an event which shocked the whole world. Two towers fell and America was at war. With people suiciding by jumping from the towers and rubble, mud and debris flying around the streets of New York, chaos thrived and people panicked.
This world of chaos is depicted in the book “Falling Man” by Don DeLillo (2007), in which a man named Keith Neudecker wanders the city during the fall of the Twin Towers.

In the 1st chapter of Don Delillo’s “Falling Man” the reader is drawn right into the midst of things.
“It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night. He was walking north through rubble and mud and there were people running past holding towels to their faces or jackets over their heads.” (P.1 L.1). The scene is set with utter chaos and mud, rubble and debris are scattered all around the

“The roar was still in the air, the buckling rumble of the fall. This was the world now. Smoke and ash came rolling down streets and turning corners, busting around corners, seismic tides of smoke, with office paper flashing past, standard sheets with cutting edge, skimming, whipping past, otherworldly things in the morning pall.” (P.1 L.19). DeLillo makes great of words which are often associated with disasters, such as seismic, tides and rumble. In addition to this, there’s a sense of movement throughout the entire chapter due to DeLillo’s choice of words, as for example he uses words like flashing, rolling, busting and turning to create a feeling of sudden chaos and destruction. By this consecutive use of words associated with disaster and movement, the story becomes more intense and exciting which, to some degree, recreates the atmosphere of the terrorist attack of September 11th although the story is told in past