The Dead of September 11 is deep poem that provokes many feelings and thoughts. There are many topics that are rather easy to delve in to. Throughout this essay, three of these literary techniques will be addressed and “delved into”, so to speak. These techniques are: diction, figurative language and tone. Throughout the following essay several large ideas and the theme of this poem will also be addressed, including but not limited to the universality of the poem and the absolute obliteration of falsities and of false intimacy. Tony Morrison has created a complex, captivating piece of literary art that can be viewed and be interpreted in many different ways, with each individual person who examines it emerging from the piece of literary genius with a possibly similar, but unique interpretation.
The diction in this poem is very intriguing. Tony Morrison’s choices of words are both surprising and unique on several occasions throughout “The Dead of September 11”. First, the seemingly sexual diction occasionally used throughout the poem. Words like “intimacy” and “seduced” are often used in light of sexual circumstances. Obviously sex does not fit into the context of this poem. However, the fact that sex is among the most primal functions of the human being, not to mention that sex is just about as close as you can be to someone (right behind motherhood, for obvious reasons), can better fit into this poem’s meaning. Perhaps the speaker has lost someone in the 9/11 tragedy, someone that they want to be close to. Perhaps the speaker was inciting that the acts of 9/11 were primal, and those who committed them should be treated as animals, inside our memories, as the culprits have all perished, to the general public’s knowledge at the very least. Another possibility is that the speaker meant that to “speak” with the dead one has to be in a primal state, with no sense of society or of biases. As a second example, the harsh, almost