Falling Man Essay

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A picture is worth a thousand words. But for many people a picture taken by Richard Drew called "The Falling Man" left many people speechless. Two years after the terrorist attacks on world trade centers author Tom Junod was inspired to write his famous article for Esquire Magazine entitled The Falling Man. In his article Junod discusses the victims of the terrorist attacks who were forced out of the towers due to the overwhelming heat from the fire or in desperation for relief from the smoke. These people who ended up in this unimaginable position and ended jumping from the towers. Junod and many other people referred to these people as Jumpers. Junod as wrote specifically about the man in Drew's picture, and who he could of been, along with the families of the victims. Through out Junod's piece, he is constantly trying to get the reader to question why nobody has paid attention to the Jumpers, as if they are a taboo subject. He is able to do this with the constant but subtle word choice through out the entire article. Even in the first paragraph while Junod is talking about the picture of "The Falling Man", he is already trying to get the reader the question the picture. He goes about doing this by engulfing the picture with a sense of peace by using words like relaxed, comfortable, casual and free. At the same time, Junod purposefully avoids using any sort of negative words, even though this picture is about a man who was forced into a position where he is plummeting to his certain death. A while later in the section titled "They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower" Junod takes a different approach to get the reader to look at the Jumpers. Instead of using soothing words to describe the Jumpers he begins to use dehumanizing words like "they" and at the same time avoids using any words that would put any emotions behind the

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