David Foster Wallace's Case

“9/11: The View from the Midwest,” written by David Foster Wallace, is an essay describing the events that occurred in the neighborhood he lived in, in Bloomington, Illinois, and how the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack effected the lives of the people around him. Wallace goes in great detail throughout the entire essay. Wallace writes a great deal about the area surrounding his neighborhood, his neighbors, the experience he had at the “Qik-n-EZ” while trying to hunt down a flag to put in his yard, the way Mrs. Thompson’s house was displayed, etc.

He refers to the people in the town he lives in as not “unfriendly”(1) but “reserved”(1). He goes on to say that living in Bloomington you have a circle of friends that you spend time with on occasions, but you never make pointless conversation with strangers. He then suggests that a tragedy like the “Horror” can change all of that. He backs up his claim by including evidence in the synecdoche telling the reader that he heard small talk between two strangers while waiting in line to checkout in a line at Burwell’s after the attack.

On Wednesday he vividly describes the way his neighborhood looked after the attack. Wallace tells the reader of the many flags that are spread around the neighborhood, in yards, on mailboxes and cars. He doesn’t completely understand where they all came from and describes them as appearing overnight. Because Wallace feels the need to fit in with the rest of the people in his neighborhood and stick a flag in the front of his yard, for everyone to see, he goes on and looks all over town for an American flag. He struggles to find one, eventually winds up in the “Qik-n-EZ”, but still no luck. The owner, a Pakistani man, of the gas station helps solve his problem and Wallace ends up making his own, homemade, American flag. He insists on the irony of it all. The Pakistani man was the one who helped him display a flag in his front yard.

In the journal entitled “Aerial & Ground Views”