Kaytlin why is he so significant.Because Junod’s interest
Kaytlin Ferraro On the morning of September 11, 2001 millions of people were in shock the moment they received news that the World Trade Center was hit. The images from this horrific day flooded the media’s television screens and newspaper articles. Perhaps the most gruesome images shown were those of people jumping out of the building as they were collapsing. Tom Junod, a writer for the Esquire magazine, illustrates his perspective of this shocking incident through pictures, media coverage, and depicting people’s reactions in his article The Falling Man.Tom Junod’s article should be read by anyone who believes they have felt all there is to feel from the 9/11 attack. He will prove otherwise that there is indeed still much emotion to be felt even 10 years after the happenings of that day.
Tom Junod brings back the almost forgotten, painful recollections, of the morning of September 11. Tom Junod put one particular photograph into perspective to convey the tenderness himself and others felt for the people who were forced to jump from the World Trade Center. A photo of an unidentified man falling from the building was poetically depicted by Junod. In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in the last instants of life, embraced it” (Junod 1). The man in the photograph is portrayed by Juond as almost angelic like as seen in this quote. I believe he created this angelic-like feature of the image to bring about awareness to his readers that the people jumping from the World Trade Center carried a sense of innocence with their suicide jump.
Very little has been written about the 200+ people who jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center on 9/11.The photo of a man falling, taken by Richard Drew, was shown through newspapers once and never again. Junod brings this photo back to life and portays it to be The tenderness Junod felt is shown throughout his article in a way the almost moves his readers to tears.
This is a reason everyone should read The Falling Man. What looked like debree was actually people jumping. The article “The Falling Man” was written by a strikingly visual author by the name of Tom Junod. From the very beginning of the article Junod finds himself wondering who the Falling Man is and why is he so significant.Because Junod’s interest in the Falling Man, he leads the reader on to figure out what is so significant about him as well.
Could it be that the identity of the man in the photo doesn’t matter? Or does a hidden meaning behind the photo reach beyond the identity of the man? In order for Junod to figure out why the Falling Man is so important, he first examined and explained the photograph in a great amount of detail. The Falling Man photograph was taken on the morning of 9/11 by Richard Drew. The man in the photo is so vertical and symmetrical which really made the picture so unique from all others taken on 9/11. There is something almost rebellious in the man’s posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end” (Junod 1).
This passage portrays the man in the photo as fearless which leads the audience to believe that something significant is going on in the photo. The entire article was Junod trying to figure out who exactly the Falling Man is in the photograph. He described the man in the man as so vertical and symmetrical which really made the picture so unique and makes viewers wonder who the falling man really is.Junod interviewed two possible families or the falling man and took their insights of the photograph and the man inside of the frame. The family of Noberto Hernandez opposed the thought that they had any relation to the man in the photograph because they believed he would never do such a thing.
They believed that jumping out of the burning building was a sign of a betrayal of love. Families in the article thought of the man jumping as a loss of hope and a betrayal of love. On the contrary, Stewart interviewed the mother of Jonathan Briley, to find out if the man in the photograph was really her son or not.She said it was possible and did not reject the thought as did the Hernandez family. She found the jumpers to be a sign of a loss of hope. Is it really a betrayal of love or a loss of hope? I believe it’s a sign of bravery.
However, this bravery is either encouraged or discouraged by the American people. If you were to ask people from all over the globe to explain their reaction to “The Falling Man” there would be a variety of differences. His ending statement seemed to say that we all need to look deep within ourselves and find our own path in dealing with this tragedy.If the man falling were deeply religious, then jumping would be out of the question, which would explain the Hernandez’s reaction. Yet, one cannot be sure how one would respond if placed in the same circumstance.
Two thoughts that were missing might be seen as insensitive or dispassionate. The answer is revealed by asking two questions. First, how do we know that some of the people didn’t actually just fall as there were many on the ledges and at the windows and some of those who jumped could have been pushed and actually would have fallen?Second, how do we know that any of them, not just the man in the picture, were not suicidal in the first place and just saw this as a way out without leading the scars behind that a suicide leaves? As for the man in the picture, any of the above could be possible but it could also be possible as the article suggests that he jumped and was at peace with his decision knowing as best on can that he was going to die no matter what and made or was given a choice as to how he wanted it to end.I am scared of heights but I do believe that I would have been a jumper simply because at impact you are dead and little, if any, pain is felt whereas being crushed is not usually a quick death, so involves some pain. The man in the picture looks to be at peace with him and with whatever he believed in. The article does a very good job of filing through so many possibilities, but does so in a compassionate way that can move a person to tears. Throughout the entire article Junod is trying to find out whom exactly the falling man is, but to be honest, the identity is irrelevant.
Because of this photograph, the falling man now stands as an icon for millions of people around the world. If his identity was revealed, there would be different kinds of truths emerging from the photograph. The anonymous nature of it leaves the identity open for interpretation, which would mean that anybody could potentially believe that the Falling Man is their loved one who died that day. Therefore, the image could be disturbing for a lot more people than if the photograph wasn’t anonymous in nature.But because the falling man can’t be clearly identified, he has come to represent the idea of the “unknown soldier” that Junod described. The unknown soldier doesn’t stand for just one, he stands for many. He is sort of a memorial for the terrible events of 9/11.
He is a sign of hope for the American people who refuse to surrender to terrorism. By Junod ending his article in this way it leads readers to view the photograph and have different interpretations. Some see beauty, horror, suicide, or freedom.
Junod portrayed the different ways a person would look at the falling man by writing the different views of the families in the article. Some people see him as a coward, but others may believe he was indeed brave. From the very beginning of the article Junod is trying to piece the identity puzzle together of the Falling Man. He does this by interviewing the possible family members of the man in the photo and getting their insights on the situation. However, as the article goes on, Junod came to realize that it doesn’t really matter who the falling man is.
He is a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.
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