Extra Credit Blog

Focus on McEwan's description of the media coverage following 9/11, paying particular attention to the way in which he describes and imagines the effect mass images had on individual psyches. Can you relate anything McEwan says to Perowne's experiences in Saturday? To receive extra creidt, post your response by 11:59PM Sunday, 17 February.

September 11th affected people all around the globe emotionally and mentally. Certainly, those related to victims of 9/11 suffered immense pain with which I cannot identify. We all, though, instinctively felt compassion and fear for those who were involved in the attacks. Could it have been me? What would I have done in that instance?

McEwan describes the images associated with 9/11 as chilling and bleak. When talking about people jumping from the building holding hands, he says that it had to have been out of "utter desperation..Jumping to certain death rather than dying in pain in a fire. It spoke to me of sheer panic" (Frontline Interview). McEwan describes his feelings and reactions to the events, which I think are almost identical to any of those watching the event.

Phone Call from the Twin Towers.

I think that Perowne's experiences in Saturday are very similar to the events that occurred in 9/11. Certainly, there was a plane accident and Perowne expected that passengers were injured and or dead, just as in the attacks on 9/11. However, Perowne did not actually see the victims of the plane crash nor was he able to feel any deep remorse for those people when he first saw the airplane going down. Later in the novel, after Perowne discovers that the plane only carried the two pilots and cargo, he felt less affected. At this point, this situation seems hardly comparable to that of 9/11. However, in the initial stages, when Perowne didn't have any better idea of what to think, McEwan does provide some insight about how he felt from the 9/11 attacks and externalized those feelings through Perowne.