No longer an incredibly promised land: trauma and victimhood in the United States after 9/11 in Foers Extremely loud and incredibly close and in Halabys Once in a promised land: a novel

Abstract

In his novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer tells us the story of the Schell family after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The narrative is told through the perspective of three main characters: Oskar, Oskars grandmother, and his grandfather. Oskar, a 9-year-old, has his world turned upside down after the passing of his father, who was at one of the Twin Towers on what Oskar refers to as the worst day. Laila Halaby, in her novel Once in a Promised Land: A Novel, takes us to Tucson, Arizona, where we meet Jassim and Salwa: two Arab-American characters whose lives are about to change completely in the aftermath of the attacks in Manhattan. Foer and Halaby show to us readers two sides of the same story, and this thesis aims to analyze these works comparing the traumatic experience lived by Oskar, Salwa and Jassim in order to discuss the idea of victim and victimizer in a post 9/11 United States of America.