SOURCE: "Terror as Usual in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Assignment," in Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 1, March 1991, pp. 86-93.

In the following essay on Dürrenmatt's The Assignment, Scanlan explores the fragmentation of identity and "the paired themes of terrorism and literary realism."

The history of terrorism has been entwined with the history of the novel ever since serialization of Dostoevski's The Possessed began in 1871. Perhaps in spite of traditional assumptions, still not entirely lost, about the clear distinctions between literary and political activities, it is inevitable that terrorists sometimes seem to resemble novelists. Marginalized plotters both, they seek to impose their own constructions on a chaotic and resistant reality, relying on their ability to move the emotions of strangers. And though terrorists attract attention through violence, their targets are almost always symbolic, and their aims must finally be explained in language. Moreover, as leftist critics frequently argue...