Talk of the Town

September 11, 2001. This is a day that most people probably remember exactly what they were doing at the time that the World Trade Center was attacked. John Updike takes an emotional approach at explaining what he saw that day and how it affected not only him and his family, but also the entire nation. Susan Sontag takes a different approach. She doesn't focus on how she felt during this, but rather at the laziness of the government and how they were not taking the right actions to deal with the attack.

John Updike uses his experience from the attack to show us what that day might have been like for someone living in New York. The way that he described the event was a way that you could close your eyes and picture everything that he was describing. Updike also shows that the United States can be strong and move on from this unfortunate event. He says "we have only the mundane duties of survivors--to pick up the pieces, to bury the dead, to take more precautions, to go on living." I really do think that this is what needed to be done. The United States is a strong country and can pull through terrible times, so that we may have better ones.

Susan Sontag is in a completely different ballpark with her writing. She doesn't use an experience like Updike did, but rather uses criticism on the government. From the start she talks about how our government is trying to tell everyone that everything is going to be okay. She says "We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall." I don't think that she should be criticising the government because they believe that we can stand tall after such an unfortunate event. She has so much negativity in this piece of writing to express her viewpoint. I can't say that I agree with what she said, but I also understand that everyone has their different views on different events that occur in our country.