Memorial Representation in Amy Waldman’s The Submission and the Novel as a Counter-Monument

Year 2019, Issue: 50, 63 - 90, 01.04.2019

Merve Özman Kaya

Abstract

The crisis caused by the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers has also shown itself in the fields of art and literature. There are ongoing discussions over the role of the artist/writer after 9/11 and how the events could be best represented. Amy Waldman’s novel The Submission 2011 narrates America’s encounter with its Muslim population after 9/11. Although many 9/11 novels most favored by academics deal with domestic and psychic trauma, Waldman’s novel focuses instead on the cultural trauma. This article will compare the reactions to the actual 9/11 memorial design of Michael Arad with the reactions to the memorial design of Mohammad Khan narrated in The Submission, to display parallelisms which would bare the novel’s political potential to question America’s relationship to its past. It will read The Submission as a novel that functions as what James E. Young would call a “countermonument,” serving as an anti-solution to the attacks on the Twin Towers; provoking the reader to remember, think and question the past; and rendering them active participants rather than “passive and forgetful” ones for whom the memory work is done by the memorials. In line with Young’s concept of the counter-monument, Waldman’s novel does not attempt to show American society better than it is, nor does it attempt to provide a closure or a reconciliation regarding 9/11. Instead with its depiction of a fictional memorial debate, it challenges a unified notion of the past forced on Americans and questions the idea of building a memorial that bury events beneath national myths, which attest the novel’s function as a counter-monument

Keywords

Amy Waldman, The Submission, 9/11, counter-monument, American identity

Amy Waldman’ın The Submission Romanında Anıtsal Temsil ve Bir Karşı Anıt olarak Roman

Abstract

11 Eylül 2001’de New York’ta İkiz Kulelere yapılan terör saldırılarının yansımaları edebiyat ve sanat alanlarında da kendini gösterdi. Saldırılar sonrası sanatçının/yazarın rolü ve olayların ortaya konacak eserlerde en iyi nasıl temsil edileceği üzerine gelişen tartışmalar halen sürmektedir. Amy Waldman’ın The Submission 2011 romanı Amerika’nın 11 Eylül sonrası Müslüman vatandaşlarıyla karşı karşıya gelişini ele alır. Akademisyenler tarafından en çok övgü alan bu dönem romanları ruhsal travmayı konu ederken, Waldman’ın romanı bunlar yerine kültürel travmaya odaklanır. Bu makale Michael Arad’ın 11 Eylül anıtına gösterilen tepkileri romanın baş karakteri Mohammad Khan’ın kurgusal anıt projesine gösterilen tepkilerle kıyaslayacak ve romanın Amerika’nın geçmişiyle olan ilişkisini sorgulamaya yönelik siyasi olanakları gözler önüne sermek adına bu tepkiler arasındaki benzerliklere dikkat çekecektir. Bunu yaparken, romanı İkiz Kulelere yapılan saldırılara bir çözüm sunmayan; aksine okuyucuları olayları hatırlamaya sevk eden; onları geçmiş hakkında düşündüren ve sorgulatan; onları hatırlama işini kendileri yerine anıtlara yaptıran “pasif” ve “unutkan” bireyler olmaktansa aktif katılımcılar haline getirmeyi hedefleyen; James E. Young’ın “karşı anıt” kavramına uyan bir eser olarak ele alacaktır. Roman, 11 Eylül sonrası Amerikan toplumunu olduğundan daha iyi göstermeye veya olaylara bir sonuç veya uzlaşma sağlamaya çalışmaz. Tam tersine, sunduğu kurmaca anıt tartışması ile, Amerikalılara dayatılan sorgulanmaya kapalı geçmiş anlayışına ve saldırıları ulusal mitlerin altına gömecek bir anıt tercih etme fikrine meydan okuyan bir “karşı anıt” olarak ortaya çıkar

Keywords

Amy Waldman, The Submission, 11 Eylül saldırıları, karşı anıt, Amerikan kimliği

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