Two Thoughts on Two Towers

On the fateful day that came nearly a decade ago, this nation found itself stunned by one of the most tragic incidents it had seen in many years. As the first tower was hit and began to fall, people saw this as a horrible accident that would bring grief to families everywhere. When the second tower was hit soon after, people no longer saw this as an accident, but a threat, and while the families who had lost loved ones to this act of terrorism would still grieve, people would begin to think and feel other beliefs and feelings almost as strong. Some feared for their safety, and others questioned the ability of the government to protect them. Many, like Susan Sontag felt anger, both at the government for being to high thinking of of itself to be hit so off guard, and at the people who committed this . Yet much fewer, including John Updike, used this to see the glory of this nation and find its ability to recover from this tragedy. These two share these opinions in essays, and it is interesting to see how their views are also expressed in the voice of their writing.

Sontag shows her feelings of frustration by writing insults with sarcasm toward the U.S. government, mocking its labeling of the kamikaze plane hijackers as cowards in their attacks on civilization, by calling the U.S. a coward by fighting from the sky, bombing Iraq, but out of harms way from any retaliation. She claims that these terrorists are in fact not cowards, but brave in that they, morality set aside, are willing to kill themselves for what they believe in. She then criticizes the government as trying to make things seem less bleak than they really are and convince people that they are strong, and that congressmen are happy to follow the President. She uses this voice of writing to help fire up the reader into agreeing with her and seeing the follies of the government.

Updike has a much calmer voice in his writing and he uses this to let the reader better see his faith in the glory and ability to rebuild that he believes the U.S. has. He does this with an elegant use of vocabulary that defines the horrors through metaphors and ends his essay by instilling hope in the thoughts of the reader. He does not try to hide the horrors, but rather to explain that despite this horror, the United States has the strength to pull through and renew itself.

It is interesting to see the difference in the writings these two writers have and how their feelings are shown in the voice of their writing.