期刊名称:Teaching American Literature : A Journal of Theory and Practice
电子版ISSN:2150-3974
出版年度:2013
卷号:6
期号:2
页码:13-38
出版社:Teaching American Literature
摘要:Don DeLillo, in his first post-9/11 novel Cosmopolis, addresses the question of (terrorist) Other as occupying an infiltrating position within the American society as the host community. He purports to make a diagnosis of the deficiencies inherent in the West's global capitalist system which make it "vulnerable" and exposed to the terrorists' violence. Underlying DeLillo's approach toward terrorism in this novel is the discourse of American liberal cosmopolitanism in terms of which American society is portrayed as "the land of the free;" a "hybrid" society constituted by "heterogeneous" ethnicities with different systems of values and beliefs. This dynamic multiculturalism, so is claimed, brings about clashes, gaps, and cracks within the American community as a whole and accordingly jeopardizes the solidity of American culture. What is taken for granted is validity of the governmental account of terrorism. Adopting an ambiguous position toward this discourse, DeLillo both endorses it and subverts, through parody, some of its affiliated precepts. In this article, first DeLillo's insular representation of a "Cosmopolitan" America as a "superpower" is explored and then his subliminal registration of an Orientalized other evoking 9/11 "us/them" paradigm is brought to light
关键词:Don DeLillo; Cosmopolis; American multiculturalism; us/them; ;Orientalism; 9/11