Katy Mcalary

Extremely Visual & Incredibly Communal: Trauma, Multimodality, and 9/11 Literature Katy Mcalary

?9/11,? as it was metonymically abbreviated, was marked by visuality. Although several novelists have written literature surrounding the attacks on the World Trade Center, many have circumvented some of the pivotal components of September 11th. To create a holistic literary product, there are three vital elements to be accounted for: the aspect of visuality, the victims? confusion and grief, and the aspect of a rehabilitative community. Jonathan Safran Foer?s novel "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" is a unique and stylistically-distinctive representation of the 9/11 event. Foer?s use of verbal avoidance strategies point to the utter confusion and grief of trauma victims. His use of multimodality, an alternative formatting strategy that implements differing fonts and photographs, speaks to the highly visual aspect of September 11th. Also, Foer emphasizes the importance of building a community in the midst of a traumatized individual?s fragmentation of reality and his/her personal grief. Therefore, Foer?s novel is one of the few to fully encapsulate the aesthetic quality of September 11th while also accounting for the victims? grief and their restorative process through community.