Dehumanizing Terrorists :

A Comparative Study of Updike's Terrorist and Lahiri's Lowland

Abstract

The concept of terrorism receives two different treatments by the writers of two different socio-cultural ancestries. In John Updike's novel Terrorist (2006), the Muslim terrorist protagonist Ahmad's beliefs and actions are more incomprehensible and dehumanized than that of Jhumpa Lahiri's Udayan in Lowland (2013). Edward Said condemns the terrorist characters who are placed in isolation, out of time and context position to take a dehumanized decision ('The Essential Terrorist', 2006). It is expected that writers of terrorist literature will project terrorism through an analytical and causal view of the characters and situation. This paper will explore the differences between the two terrorist characters keeping in mind the after affect of 9/11 apocalypse.