Summary
At the beginning of Part 13, the speaker describes being on a bus and overhearing an argument between two women. The women are arguing about whether or not Rudy Giuliani should have been made to kneel before the Queen of England when he was knighted. Overhearing this conversation led the speaker to think about Guiliani in terms of his newfound nobility as well as his job as mayor of New York City. The speaker says that his response to a reporter after 9/11 that the city had lost "more than we can bear" made the speaker take him seriously for the first time. The speaker goes on to say that it is "incomprehensible and ungraspable" that three thousand people died in the attack. For the speaker, this abstract number does not convey the loss that Guiliani "recognized and answered for."
Following the moment with Giuliani, the speaker inserts a quote by Wallace Stevens about nobility and how it ignites our imagination: "Nothing could be more evasive and inaccessible. Nothing distorts itself and seeks disguise more quickly" (81). The speaker considers the image of Giuliani kneeling in front of the queen as he is knighted. Since it wasn't shown on television, it was a "moment to be heard and experienced" (81). In the speaker's eyes, this moment allowed Giuliani's understanding of those who died during 9/11 to become tangible and real.
In the pages that follow, the speaker describes going to the rubble a few days after the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. She tells us that three days after 9/11 it rains through the night. Following the rain, the speaker goes down to the site. She thought there would be less smoke because of the rain, but there is still smoke in the air because the debris is still burning. She sees the rescue workers moving the wreckage and she compares them to dead men. The fumes coming off the wreckage affect the speaker physically. The rain has changed the landscape of the site: ink is bleeding off of posters of the missing (82). It has cleared away the ash in some places and in others it has matted the ash and debris together, making it much worse. The speaker takes note of the policemen on the scene and how they react to the scenery and events around them. They stare at all the people who have come to examine the wreckage, including the reporters.
Following the attack, Osama bin Laden becomes a household name. The speaker takes note of how he is being represented by the media. She then moves on to a discussion of what she learned from Hegel in college. She relates Hegel's social analysis that "death is used [by the state] as a threat to keep citizens in line" (84). The speaker analyzes how when one stops fearing death, one stops feeling social responsibility. This makes a person harder for the government to control. She then goes on to argue that terrorists "embody" the state Hegel is describing, which is a kind of "freedom" (84). Hegel uses the example of Antigone to describe her point, who the speaker refers to as "a domestic terrorist" (84).
The speaker recounts having a sing-song tune about catching bin Laden stuck in her head. This is followed by an image, presumably of the e-mail where she first heard of the song. She overhears a conversation between two men on the street about death.
In Part 14, the speaker is in a taxi on the West Side Highway. She allows her thoughts to wander and she muses on loneliness. The cab driver then asks the speaker if she goes to Columbia University. The speaker responds that she went there years ago but not anymore. The cab driver proceeds to ask the speaker what her occupation is. The speaker replies, "I write about the liver" (89). The speaker's conversation with the cab driver moves on to talk about race dynamics in the United States, by sharing impressions of white people. The driver tells the speaker that he is originally from Pakistan. The speaker then realizes that since 9/11 has just happened, the cab driver must have been facing a lot of microaggressions from white people who suspect that he is a terrorist. The speaker thinks to herself that the cab driver should be happy that he can't read their thoughts. Beneath the interaction between the cab driver and the speaker, there is an anatomical drawing of the human body with a liver and the continental United States inside of its abdomen.
The speaker moves on to a series of questions concerning financial decisions and consumerism. This moves into a memory of what America was like in the nineties and how it has changed today. The speaker characterizes the United States in the early 21st century as polarized: "either you are with us or you are against us" (91). Beneath this meditation is a picture of a white man holding an American flag so that his face is mostly covered.
The speaker then describes how everyone in New York City was given a message from USPS warning them to look out for suspicious packages. A picture of the notice is included on the page. The speaker reflects on the information in this notice. The speaker begins to take note of her actions following the arrival of this notice and starts questioning her own fear. The prose moves on to a list of commodities that are "American-made." The speaker notes that it seems like her survival depends upon these items. She says that it turns her into something like a commodity: "I was a product, or I was like a product" (93). The speaker sees American consumerism and the pervasive national fear as one-and-the-same. They have affected her deeply: "I used to think of myself as a fearless person" (93).
Analysis
Parts 13 and 14 are deeply concerned with the political atmosphere of New York City and the country as a whole following 9/11. The voice is analytical, frightened, and tense throughout these parts of the work. The theme of collective identities versus personal identity arises again in these sections, as the speaker sees herself as a part of the panicked atmosphere following 9/11 while also being critical of it. The speaker notes that she gained an appreciation for Rudy Guiliani because of his response to the attack: "a reporter asked him to estimate the number of the dead. His reply—More than we can bear—caused me to turn and look at him as if for the first time. It is true that we carry the idea of us along with us" (81). The speaker places herself among this collective "we" that mourns the huge loss of life from the attack. The speaker is also part of a group of observers—"the public, the news people, everyone and anyone—who goes to the site to look at the rubble and observe the work of the rescue workers (83). This moment affects her to such an extent that she finds herself unable to put it into words: "The language of description competes with the dead in the air" (82).
While the speaker feels a collective grief following the tragedy of 9/11 she also remains critical of the government and the media's response to it following the attack. In Part 13, she analyzes Osama bin Laden through the lens of Hegel. She believes that in a way, bin Laden enjoys complete freedom because he is not scared of capital punishment: "The minute you stop fearing death you are no longer controlled by governments and counsels" (84). The tone that the speaker uses to talk about bin Laden is more complex than the demonizing perspective of the media and general public. This is evidenced by an email that the speaker gets with a sing-song tune about catching and killing bin Laden (85). Rankine leaves her perception of bin Laden purposefully ambiguous at this part of the work—she neither extolls nor condemns him. Instead, she looks at him through her own personal lens rather than through the collective American lens.
Similarly, the speaker is critical of the xenophobia that resulted from 9/11, as evidenced by her conversation with the taxi driver in Part 14. She notes that American society has become deeply polarized following the attack: "Now it is the twenty-first century and either you are with us or you are against us. Where is your flag?" (90). The speaker believes that this sentiment has resulted in an inability to see the whole picture: "It strikes me that what the attack on the World Trade Center stole from us is our willingness to be complex" (91).
In Part 13, the speaker compares Osaba bin Laden to Antigone and discusses both of their lives in terms of the gray area between life and death. Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. A defining characteristic of Antigone is that she believes in divine authority over human law. Rankine uses Hegel to classify her as a "domestic terrorist"—"She identified with the dead, was willing to walk among them" (84). In the Ancient Greek play Antigone, she is described as "already dead" before she actually dies (84). The speaker believes bin Laden exists in a similar state: "So it is, was, already, with Osama" (84). Thus, in this case, the gray area between life and death is caused by a lack of fear of death. Because Antigone and bin Laden are willing to "walk among" the dead, they are, in a sense, close to death.
In Part 14, the speaker describes the relationship between loneliness and experience: "feelings fill the gaps created by the indirectness of experience" (89). In other words, because everything we see, read, learn, touch, feel or taste is mediated by our own subjective reality, it is not an objective analysis of the world. According to Rankine, feelings help make experiences more objective. For example, if one is having a social experience, "thoughts carry it into a singular space"—one's own mind (89). Ultimately, the speaker is arguing that being trapped in one's own point of view makes us lonely, because we are always separate from the collective.
The speaker criticizes the American obsession with capitalist gain and consumerism: "To roll over or not to roll over that IRA? To have a new iMac or not to have it? To eTrade or not to eTrade? Again and again these were Kodak moments, full of individuation; we were all on our way to our personal best" (91). The speaker uses the collective "we" to criticize this mindset. American society encourages us to push for "individuation," to reach for personal success, to acquire great wealth and to be perceived as successful. This is a very individualized endeavor, which separates us from the same collective that pressures us to feel these things. In this vein, the American obsession with material gain is tied to loneliness, as we are stuck into our own paths with very little regard for collective achievement.
