As we all know, 9/11 was an extremely tragic event that the United States faced. Through the eyes of John Updike, the reader can feel as if they are re-experiencing this horrendous event. He has a natural way of showing throughout his essay, which really allows for the true connections to be formed from his writing, whereas Susan Sontag comes out very strong with her own personal opinions of the event that tend to be quite negative.
"...smoke speckled with bits of paper curled into the cloudless sky, and strange inky rivulets ran down the giant structure's vertically corrugated surface." Only a few sentences in and Updike already had me zoned into his experience. The style and word choice he posessed throughout his entire essay created vivid images that stuck to my mind. Even though this event occured ten years ago, it felt like I could actually see what happened all over again. However, it wasn't just his writing style that really caught my glimpse, but more so the positive flow he created about the tragedy. In the end it was made clear to me that he was trying to get across that, yes, we aren't always going to have the perfect society, but "risk is a price of freedom", and that's what our country is about.
On the other side of this there was Sontag, who really put forth her own opinions, which were not the most positive opinions. "Everything is not O.K." is one direct quote on Sontag's opinion of America. She believed that America was being run by a "robotic President" and that there should be a lot more thinking going on because in her thoughts the country is not doing well, and that we should be afraid. I found this read to be quite strong as she shared her opinions. Sharp comments aren't the easiest to take, and although she makes good points and states what it looks like from a brutally honest state of my mind, I believe that there could have been a much more pleasing approach to her writing. It also wasn't as personal about the experience of 9/11, instead it focused more on the issues that 9/11 sparked.
Every single one of us has our own opinions, our own experiences, and our own visuals, and it's these events that bring out the different sides in all of us. Whether we witness the tragedy from our back porch, or the television, it's still happening and everyone is going through it. Updike and Sontag are great examples of the different ways people can interpret a tragedy and describe it in their own unique ways.
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