Dear Reader Letter

Dear Reader,

Throughout the course of this project, I delved into the metaphor of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, within the novel I read, The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. This project cured me of being fainthearted. The content of the novel is heavy, and paired with the fragility and bleakness of recalling an event I can barely recall did not make for an easy path.

The golden thread I attempted (and hopefully accomplished) to establish throughout my multigenre research project was that of the fragments and what's left behind after a cataclysmic and widespread event. My expository essay explores the extended metaphor between 9/11 and the Departure throughout The Leftovers. I compared and contrasted the two, reaching across the scope of their factors including religion, politics, effects, and the emotional state of those left behind. The golden thread derives the most from what is left behind, since I believe that is the most integral commonality between September 11th and the Departure that Perrotta highlights.

With my community board, I cut pieces out of, burned, and tagged the missing posters that I created to represent Perrotta's world of the Departure and the actual examples of 9/11 missing posters. The destroyed aspect of the posters is representative of the broken parts of those left behind that they will never get back, and that is what they have to live with.

In my presidential address, I lingered in Perrotta's world after studying former president George W. Bush's response to September 11th, John F. Kennedy's address during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's declaration of war after Pearl Harbor. While all three did try to rouse the support of the nation, a facet I did include in my nameless President's address, there was a certain lack of personal connection to the audience. They spoke solely as the leaders of the nation and not as a citizen of humanity. With my fictitious president, I tried to have him reach out and connect to his audience by making him a Leftover as well, losing his children.

The prayer piece from the perspective of a fourteen-year-old girl regretting her final encounter with her first responder father on 9/11 captures the weight of things left said and unsaid, as well as a general lack of faith in God above that is applicable to both the Departure and 9/11. The girl is "broken" and "missing" without her father, the most reliable figure in her life, and that again envelops the gaping hole that is not able to be filled, even with time and healing.

In my final genre, the first edition of a study created by the bipartisan research group responsible for determining the cause of the Departure, I recreated the types of categories and questions I believe scientists would need to draw any conclusion about the nature of the Departure. They range from religion to health to political views. It is a representation of trying to put the pieces together to explain the inexplicable, the effort of humanity to comfort and assure those who remain of their own morality and safety should an event like that occur again.

I learned so much that I didn't before, and actually did have fun doing this project. It is a lot to deal with, but the illumination and connection to events I found interesting made it 100% worthwhile.

Sincerely,

Emily Mattson

The 2% & The 2,977 (Community Board)

My final genre is a visual piece. It is a community billboard, with the missing posters and inquiries of the location of those missing in both the fictional world of Tom Perrotta and examples of real missing persons posters from September 11th, 2001.

Bird's eye view of the notice board.

Example of a missing poster from 9/11/01.

The left side of the board is dedicated to The Leftovers.

The right side of the board is dedicated to the reality of 9/11/01.

Even Me (Presidential Address)

My fellow Americans:

Today, we suffered a heartbreaking and disturbing loss. Our friends and family, neighbors and coworkers, community leaders and politicians vanished in a manner we cannot begin to perceive or understand at this point in time.

At approximately four-thirty-four this afternoon, over one hundred million members of our global population faded into some other place, not yet known or understood by those of us left behind.

This occurrence is not restrained by our borders. From China to Mexico, from Ghana to France; all across the globe, there are reports of mass disappearances of our brothers and sisters in the middle of their days, in the midst of an ordinary day in our broad world.

As I speak, a team of men and women is being assembled to determine the cause of this Sudden Departure. They are the best in all of their fields: psychologists and psychiatrists, sociologists and biologists. This board will not stray to religious or ideological bias; it is to be bipartisan and fair in order to obtain the most accurate reasoning behind such an unusual and devastating event.

Now I speak not as your President, but as a citizen of humanity. Now, I speak as a father, who like many of you, lost what was precious to him. I received word five hours ago that my children are no longer with me. They too, evanesced to a location unknown. As a man whose children are protected and watched almost every hour of every day, even I am not immune to the forces of nature, the power of God, the work of an unknowable element of the universe--whatever this Departure was initiated by.

Now I speak to you as your fellow man. We must not split apart as we grieve. We must unite together again as a nation, as a state, from every village to city to town, from every community to each individual one of you. Help your fellow man. Help them cope, help them live, help them continue on in the names of those we loved and lost.

And now, I wish every person left breathing on this good, green Earth a benevolent good night, good luck, and Godspeed.

Putting the Fragments Together (Sociological/Psychological Questionnaire)

PROPERTY OF B.O.I.S.D. (BOARD OF INVESTIGATION OF THE SUDDEN DEPARTURE)

**PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A PRELIMINARY DRAFT TO BE APPROVED BY THE BIPARTISAN RESEARCH GROUP, B.O.I.S.D.,  APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. DO NOT ALTER OR DAMAGE.**

DETAILS OF THE DEPARTED

NAME:

DATE OF BIRTH:

SEX:

RACE:

GENDER IDENTITY:

OCCUPATION:

QUESTIONNAIRE

EMPLOYEE, please note that you are only to circle ONE answer for each question. This will help determine the most accurate data for our research. When a WRITTEN answer is required, print legibly and to the specifications of the interviewee. Thank you.

RELIGION

1. To your knowledge, was the Departed religious?

YES NO

2. Which faith/belief most accurately represents their beliefs?

CHRISTIANITY JUDAISM ISLAM HINDUISM AGNOSTIC ATHEIST

BUDDHISM FOLK RELIGION OTHER: _______________

3. To your knowledge, did the Departed regularly attend religious services?

4. If yes, how regularly?

DAILY WEEKLY MONTHLY BIANNUALLY ANNUALLY

5. To your knowledge, was the Departed an extremist in regards to religion?

YES NO

POLITICAL/ECONOMIC

1. Which political party did the Departed most commonly identify with?

DEMOCRAT REPUBLICAN    INDEPENDENT SOCIALIST NO PREFERENCE

2. Did the Departed vote our current President into office?

YES NO

3. What is the most accurate description of the Departed’s political beliefs? Be brief but comprehensive.

4. What is the Departed’s last known financial status? Be brief but comprehensive.

5. Did the Departed have one or more of the following:

401K PLAN    PENSION    IRA      403B PLAN    SEP PLAN   SARSEP PLAN  

ESOP       PROFIT-SHARING PLAN 457 PLAN MONEY PURCHASE PLAN

6. Was the Departed invested in the stock market?

YES         NO

7. Was the Departed invested in any venture, business, company, corporation, etc.?

YES         NO

8. Was the Departed in any sort of debt?

YES         NO

9. Did the Departed support President Obama’s OBAMACARE plan?

YES         NO

10. Did the Departed complete and pay for local and federal taxes each calendar year?

YES         NO

HEALTH

1. Did the Departed have any allergies?

YES        NO

2. Did the Departed have any previously existing medical condition(s)?

YES        NO

3. If yes, please briefly describe their condition:

4. Did the Departed have any issues with mental health?

YES      NO

5. If yes, please briefly describe their condition:

6. Did the Departed ever display any suicidal tendencies?

YES           NO

7. Was the Departed ever hospitalized for longer than a week?

YES      NO

8. If yes, please briefly describe the situation:

9. Was the Departed in any way physically or mentally impaired?

YES       NO

10. If yes, please briefly describe their condition:

SOCIAL

1. Was the Departed in a long term, monogomous relationship?

YES        NO

2. Was the Departed socially healthy?

YES        NO

3. Where did the Departed go to be social? Be brief but comprehensive.

4. Was the Departed a social drinker?

YES NO

5. Did the Departed maintain social connections in the workplace?

YES                NO

6. Please list the top five social outings the Departed most enjoyed:

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

7. Did the Departed maintain an appreciation for the arts (theatre, music, artwork, dance, etc.?)

YES NO

8. Was the Departed ever in an unhealthy relationship?

YES            NO

9. Was the Departed ever bullied or intimidated socially?

YES NO

10. Did the Departed enjoy their social life?

YES            NO

**TO BE CONTINUED AND EDITED. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE OFFICES OF B.O.I.S.D.**

Fragments (A Left-Behind's Prayer)

Hey, God...or higher power, or whatever is out there that’s somehow bigger than me. I know it’s been awhile since I gave a crap about religion, in fact, it’s almost been since never because I haven’t set foot in a church for service since my baptism at about five months old, and that was like, fourteen years ago. Maybe you don’t give a crap about me, either, but I could really use some divine intervention.

It’s been exactly one month since Dad left and never came back. He’d just gotten in from a night shift at the station. I was getting ready for school, and he came to the bathroom and unplugged the hair dryer. And he said, “How are you already failing algebra?” And I yelled at him. We were fighting, and then Charlie called in an SOS, and he was gone, and the last thing he said was, “We’ll talk more about this later. I love you.”

I didn’t say I love you back. I started to walk to school, and then a cop came running out and told me to go home, get off the streets! I went home and turned on the news, and there it was. The SOS Charlie called in, and the destruction of two of the tallest buildings on the skyline. The end of peace. The end of me.

Dad never came back.

So now I know that you really don’t give a crap, whoever the hell you are! You don’t care about me, or that Dad was all that I had left! You didn’t care when you let Mom leave, and you don’t care about leaving me alone! I don’t even know why I’m trying to pray like Nan told me to; I don’t know…

I don’t know.

Actually, whoever, I do know. I know that You, whoever YOU are….You don’t exist. Because if you did, I wouldn’t be so alone. I wouldn’t feel so lost, like that one farm-themed puzzle at the doctor’s that is always missing a piece. Suddenly, I sympathize with that foolish looking farmer. He’s got a head and a brain, and legs to move, but he’s missing his heart.

I’m missing my heart. I’m that stupid farmer, and stupid Ms. Moore better be damn grateful that I fully understand metaphor now. I’m missing. Dad’s gone, and I’m missing, and I don’t think You know that I’ll never be whole again, no matter how many times I pray, no matter how many years pass by. Dad won’t be there to pretend not to cry when I walk the stage at graduation, he won’t be able to drop me off at college, he won’t be able to intimidate anyone who wants to date me like he promised to always do, even if I complained.

So bye, You. No matter how many times people, like the President or anyone else, say You are blessing America and everyone in it, I’ll never believe it. You aren’t real.

Goodbye forever!

After (Expository Essay)

After

One sunny Tuesday morning, four separate airplanes crashed onto American soil, into symbolic buildings, killing thousands, forever changing life as we knew it. Terrifying and at first inexplicable, the terrorist attacks carried out by the militant extremist group Al-Qaeda sent the nation into a tailspin, provoking massive changes in American society, politics, and religion. In his novel The Leftovers, Tom Perrotta explores a similar cataclysm with the Rapture-like premise of the story: one October day, two percent of the world’s population vanishes in what is known as the Departure. The events of the book follow that of the Garvey family in small town Mapleton, New York, all of whom are coping with the horror and bewilderment of the Departure in different ways. The aftermath of the Departure in Perrotta’s story evokes haunting parallels to the religious and secular changes in American life following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Perrotta’s comparison of the two explores how the population of a country, or even a small town, reacts to a calamity as petrifying as a terrorist attack and how they process the trauma of what they perceive to be an incomprehensible event.

The exploration starts from the get-go. Told from the point of view of the Garveys’ elder son, Tom, Perrotta delves into a comparison between the Departure and 9/11: “The coverage felt different from that of September 11th, when the networks had shown the burning towers over and over. October 14th was more amorphous, harder to pin down…” (Perrotta 51). The chaos immediately following September 11th, while the government scrambled to evacuate potential targets from the path of terrorists (9/11 Memorial) did concentrate itself in major urban areas; with the Departure, the whole world inexplicably loses friends, family, and loved ones. While the events themselves are dissimilar in scale, they both provide the same broad effects upon the populace of the United States.

In the wake of 9/11, the country recoiled from a massive loss of human life and integrity, as well as the destruction of symbolic buildings with the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, both paragons of national pride and security. In response to the attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act, a counterterrorism law that broadened governmental interference and surveillance that “quickly became shorthand for government abuse and overreaching.” (Liptak 1). This law, only somewhat effective and a catalyst for questionable governmental and judiciary procedures, came on the heels of President George W. Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terror,” inciting a continuous conflict between U.S. troops and insurgents in Middle Eastern countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Perrotta alludes to this sort of war-mongering reaction when Tom Garvey meets a soldier on an eastbound bus: “Instead of one big new war, there was just the usual bunch of crappy little ones...A few months ago, the President had announced a big troop escalation.” (Perrotta 169). 9/11 and the Departure both incite an aggressive combativeness in the government, often backed by citizens like the soldier and his brother, who swore to enlist together right after October 14th.

While he does pay tribute to the reactionary response of the government, Perrotta veers into a different direction in terms of religious attitudes following such a far-reaching event. He creates several different semi-religious, semi-cultish followings that permeate his American society: the Guilty Remnant, who refuse to speak and believe that “the old world is gone. It disappeared three years ago...we belong to the new world;” the constituents of the Healing Hug Movement, by which a man styling himself as Holy Wayne takes people’s pain away with a hug and who has a penchant for young Asian girls; and the Barefoot people, a group reminiscent to the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s who believe the only sin is misery (Perrotta 200, 73-75, 170). While Perrotta diversifies the spirituality of the nation, the contrary was true for the United States following 9/11. In a sociological study, Jeremy Uecker examined the spirituality of young adults following 9/11 and concluded they “exhibited only a modest, short-lived increase in religious salience and prayer.” (Uecker).

Alongside a comparatively smaller religious resurgence, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 promoted interfaith movements amongst the younger generations of Americans, a movement whose popularity one interfaith leader attributes to the fact that “9/11 showed the destructive potential of any exclusive claims to religious truth.” (Blake 3). Perrotta picks up on this facet of the attacks and expands upon it in the form of Reverend Matt Jamison, who loses the trust and love of his family and community, in order to prove that the Departure was not the Rapture by publishing a trashy editorial on the “sinners” who disappeared (Perrotta 16-17).

The strongest point of concurrence between the after effects of September 11th and those of the fictional October 14th is in the impact upon those who lost a loved one or friend. The oral accounts of the family members of those who lost a piece of themselves forever on 9/11, a piece that would remain gone in spite of the stitching of grief and time, batter and enlighten the listener’s emotions. David Beamer, whose son Todd helped overpower the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93, preventing the further loss of life likely planned by the terrorists, recounts his last meeting with his son and his reaction to September 11th with sadness and pride (9/11 Memorial). Beamer describes the last words the telephone operator heard on the other end of the line; the words spoken by his son: “Let’s roll,” leading the brave fliers of United 93 to overpower the hijackers. Nora Durst, the character who lost her entire family on October 14th, gives a speech ringing with the grief, sadness, and longing that most of the family left damaged on 9/11 recall in their histories (Perrotta 27). The sense of individual loss within the great scale of such a tragedy is where Perrotta captures the poignance of the two national upheavals together --  the sudden and untimely disappearance of a loved one that tears at the human psyche and its connection to the communal loss of a mass event.

The irreparable tragedy of September 11th running concurrent to Perrotta’s October 14th makes for a wholehearted and interesting endeavor to explain what we cannot ever be sure of. Whatever drives human nature, whatever “higher power” manipulates human existence -- some human experiences are inexplicable. Perrotta’s invention of a Sudden Departure, one so similar to 9/11, argues that those left behind will never entirely understand why these things happen, even with logical explanations from bipartisan groups or international investigations. And maybe, that’s just life: things just happen, and there is no why. There is only what can be sure of: life, no matter how brief, is a treasure, to be appreciated by those lucky enough to continue to live it.