In the Shadow of No Towers

In the Shadow of No Towers was probably my least favorite reading from the class. I say this not because I dislike graphic novels, but because I don’t feel like Art Spiegelman’s critique of Americans after the events of September 11^th is really fair. With every plate that he created in the first half of the book, it really felt like he was criticizing everyone in America for not acting as though September 11^th was being repeated every day. I know I can’t compare my grief over the atrocities that took place to someone who lost a loved one to terrorism that day or witnessed the collapse of the towers in person. However, I can say that the outrage I felt that day has not diminished over time. It still brings me to tears whenever I see footage of the falling towers. My heart still goes out to the families who said goodbye to each other for the last time that day not knowing they’d never have another chance to see each other again. It still angers me beyond words to know another person, let alone a group of people, is capable of such mass devastation. It’s hard to know exactly how to feel about the war on terrorism that came afterward because, let’s face it, who knows if anybody is telling the truth about it anymore? The picture of sleeping Americans that Spiegelman depicts ignoring the crisis still at hand makes it seem as though everyone has forgotten how awful it was or doesn’t care. This just isn’t true. It’s that people like me don’t know where to look for answers anymore in this country. We can’t trust the media to make unbiased reports about what’s going on here, let alone overseas. After the attacks on the towers and the pentagon, we’ve lost faith in our own government’s ability to keep us safe. We can hardly trust our own neighbors. So we do what we have to do in order to get by; we go back to living our lives the way we know how to. We can’t live in constant paranoia that our car will explode when we turn on the engine or avoid going out because a terrorist attack is more likely to take place in public. We have to move forward in spite of the horror that has taken place. I can only speak for myself, but I know that I carry the events with me as much as I can without it crippling everything I do, and that’s all I can do.