Don DeLillo’s Falling Man and the Protective Shield Against Stimuli
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6032401 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Charles Sumner (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-27 |
| Publication date | 2014-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American imago (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0065-860X • E-ISSN: 1085-7931 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/aim.2014.0003 |
| OpenAlex | W2083879344 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
This paper links the disenchantment of Keith Neudecker, protagonist of Falling Man , to psychical energies mobilized against perceived threats in his immediate environment. This mobilization, or hypercathexis of the protective shield, impoverishes the remaining psychical system, much like a nation whose bloated defense budget cripples the society that is supposed to be defended. It follows that if the external threats to which Keith responds are unchanged by 9/11, his psychic life will also be unchanged. This fact explains DeLillo’s choice to represent 9/11 and its aftermath with familiar narrative structures even though it is an event that supposedly “changed the world forever
Art · Art history · Falling (accident) · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Shield · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Geology · History · Paleontology · Philosophy · Postmodernism in Literature and Education · Psychology · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Highly cited | No |
|---|