Down the Tower

Don DeLillo

Falling Man (2007)

Chapter 14

This text is an extract of the last pages of the novel Falling Man which was written by the novelist Don DeLillo .

The title “Down the Tower” is very interesting because it can visualize into the mind of the intelligent reader the shocking image of a man who fell from the Twin Towers on September 11^TH after the planes struck.

Two parts compose the extract: in the first part there is the description of the tragic moments that were lived by the characters before the fall of the tower; the second parts is the tragic tale of the fall of rumbling and the minutes later.

The author focuses on the psychological damage that his characters have suffered in these moments before the drumming rumble. Don DeLillo shows how they try to deal with it or how they change their lives in order to avoid it.

The author describes in details the moment when the tower fall , floor to floor and the south tower diving into the smoke.

This extract does not have a linear plot. The form is “circular”, moving the reader around a central point and then ending up where he started.

The language is fragmented and some vision is distorted.