Shattered: Time, History, and Possibility in Don Delillo’s Falling Man
Shattered: Time, History, and Possibility in Don Delillo’s Falling Man

Summary/Abstract: This article develops a general conceptual model of the relationship between the structure of human historical consciousness, the multidimensional experience of time, and human agency and possibility. It includes a discussion of the ways that events that change the structure of historical consciousness affect temporal experience, ontological security, and narratives of self-identity. The experience of trauma disrupts the ontological security that is required for the continuity of identity. Trauma reorganizes our sense of time and possibility. Events that impact us negatively are more likely to remain in individual and collective memories. Traumatic events change our understanding of the past and transform our hopes for the future. They often become the pivotal points for reconfiguring narratives of personal and collective identity. The conceptual model that is developed is applied to an analysis of different strategies that selected characters in Don Delillo’s 2007 novel, Falling Man, adopt in order to rebuild their narratives of self-identity after the shattering of history and the disruption of temporal experience in the wake of the events of September 11th, 2001.

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