Perception of Authority

Throughout White Noise, DeLillo criticizes and explores society's false perception of authority. As the professor of Hitler studies at The College-on-the-Hill, Jack Gladney decides to "'grow out' into Hitler" (DeLillo 17). He grows a beard, gains weight, and wears glasses to fufill this image of authority. Jack even notes that he is "the false character that follows the name around" (DeLillo 17). He accepts a new identity- a false identity- to fufill the image of the professor. Modern media, such as the radio and the television, are over trusted sources of truths in the novel. Jack and Babette's children often trust television and radio over their own instincts. As Heinrich and his father are driving in the car, it begins to rain. Heinrich says "It's going to rain tonight" and Jack responds, "It's raining now". Heinrich replies, "The radio said tonight" (DeLillo 22). Heinrich believes what the media told him and denies the obvious truth. White Noise criticizes people's trust in false authority.

"White Noise" - Technology

A prominent theme occuring in White Noise is the fear, or mistrust, of technology. Technology is superfluous in the lives of the characters in the town. This mistrust is seen in a variety of different ways and events. One example is the Airborne Toxic Event caused by a train derailment that cause a radioactive chemical called Nyodene Derivative, which is synthesized by scientists. The fact that this chemical caused such a problem shows the fear of new synthetic technology replacing older things, and how technology can potentially go horribly wrong can be catastrophic. All the characters seem to be worried by new technological advances. For example, "That's what worries me... The very idea, the very existence, the wondrous ingenuity. On the one hand I definitely admire it. Just to think there are people out there who can conjure such things. A cloud-eating microbe or whatever. There is just no end of surprise. All the amazement that's left in the world is microscopic. But I can live with that. What scares me is have they thought it through completely? (page 161)" Another example is after Jack Gladney was exposed to radiation from Nyodene D., he must get checked for his levels of radiation. He doesn't understand the machines that are testing him and detect that his death is imminent: "He wants to insert me once more in the imaging block, where charged particles collide, high winds blow. But I am afraid of the imaging block. Afraid of its magnetic fields, its computerized nuclear pulse. Afraid of what it knows about me (page 325)." Jack already has a fear of death, which is the probable cause of his great mistrust of the machines that will reveal to him the rate at which his death is progressing. Another manifestation of this mistrust occurs when Jack discovers the drug Dylar, that's supposed to rid one of their fear of death. Jack becomes fascinated, obsessed, but at the same time scared of the drug's technology and its potential. "The drug could be dangerous, after all. And I was not a believer in easy solutions, something to swallow that would rid my soul of an ancient fear. But I could not help thinking about that saucer-shaped tablet... The drug core dissolving, releasing benevolent chemicals into my bloodstream, flooding the fear-of-death part of my brain. The pill itself silently self-destructing in a tiny inward burst, a polymer implosion, discreet and precise and considerate. Technology with a human face. (page 211)" The drug represents, all together, the fear of death, seeking an easy solution to the fear of death, new technology, and all the problems in Jack and Babette's relationship. It is only natural for Jack to be mistrustful of it.

To add to the title of the book, there are random ads interspersed throughout, which really convey the pervasiveness of technology in the lives of the characters. This adds to the title "White Noise" because there always seems to be background noise going on in the novel.

The phrase and idea of "waves and radiation" is also repeated multiple times throughout the novel. It's first seen in an interaction between Jack and Murray : "Waves and radiation. I've come to understand that the medium is a primal force in the American home. Sealed-off, timeless, self-contained, self-referring. (page 51)" And again, after the Airborne Toxic Event, when Heinrich points out that the radiation from the Nyodene D. is nothing compared to all the radiation around them: "The real issue is the kind of radiation that surrounds us every day. Your radio, your TV, your microwave oven, your powerlines just outside the door, your radar speed-trap on the highway. For years they told us these low doses weren't dangerous. (174)" which shows the growing mistrust of these things for fear that they are potentially as dangerous as the chemical cloud itself.

Technology is detached and detracts from human interaction. This is unsettling to Jack Gladney.

Obsessed with Success

            Jack does not only have a fear of dying but a fear of dying without becoming successful first. He wants approval from everyone in his life which he believes he will get from his success. He wears big glasses and fancy clothes to work to impress his coworkers and students. He also tries to sound smarter than Heinrich to impress him. This is especially shown in one passage of the book in chapter seventeen “In a huge hardware store at the mall I saw Eric Massingale…the human buzz of some vivid and happy transaction (82-84). In the passage, Jack and his family are at the mall when they run into one of Jack’s coworkers, Eric Massingale. Jack feels somewhat threatened and uncomfortable around him without his glasses and fancy clothing. After leaving him, Jack coincidentally gains an urge to shop. “Babette and the kids followed…puzzled but excited” (83) shows the reader how rare this must be for Jack. Delillo describes how many stores they walk into, how many ridiculous requests Jack makes, and how many unnecessary items he buys “the more money I spent, the less important it seemed” (84). He is obsessed with people’s approval of him which is shown through his extravagant shopping.

Jack & Heinrich’s Relationship

            Heinrich, Jack’s fourteen year old son, is known as the oddball in the family. He is the opposite of his father, passionate for nothing, and constantly disagrees with Jack’s beliefs. They foil each other in many ways to create characterization and themes. One day while Jack is dropping off Heinrich at school, he realizes “his ready yielding to our wishes and demands is a private weapon of reproach” (22). Heinrich secretly criticizes his parents, especially Jack throughout the novel. Jack follows life with his senses while Heinrich ignores his feelings and uses facts and statistics. They argue over the simplest of things such as whether or not it really is raining. Every little form of a disagreement turns into a full on argument between these two characters. Heinrich’s arguing can be a symbol of his anger with his parents, society, or his own personal life. This can’t be determined easily though because his character is often shadowed. These two character’s contradictions help characterize each other. Their arguments tell a lot about them. Because of Heinrich’s appeal to logic, he constantly clashes with Jack because of his appeal to emotion. Whenever Heinrich is brought up in the novel, a bitter tone is used to express his anger. Whenever Heinrich and Jack get in a fight, Jack’s sadness is shown to represent his desperate desire for his son’s love and approval. Their flaws, desires, and other characteristics are shown through their differences. Heinrich could also be seen as, along with Jack's other kids, a criticism of extreme post-modern childhood. Heinrich has a harsh view of the world, which is seen explicitly during the Airborne Toxic Event, when he is describing what happened and the implications in incredibly harsh language.

Fear of Death

One of the major themes shown throughout the novel is the fear of death. Don Delillo uses Jack’s character to emphasize the negative consequences of dreading death throughout a person’s life. Jack wonders and worries about his death daily. There are several aspects about death that make him anxious. First, he’s scared that his death won’t be peaceful. In chapter five, Jack wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks “Shouldn’t death, I thought, be a swan dive, graceful…?” (18). He also is fearful of his wife, Babette, dying before him such as in chapter seven “who will die first?” (30); he doesn’t want to be alone. Jack constantly consumes himself with these melancholy thoughts. He is an example of someone who wastes their life because of the fear of not living. This creates not only a theme in the novel but irony as well. It is even more ironic at the end of the novel when he attempts to kill Willy because he is so against death. This could reveal a sense of selfishness because he is only concerned with his own death, or it could show how crazy he becomes after the knowledge of his wife’s affair. Never the less, Delillo exaggerates Jack’s fear of death to get his point across to the reader that dreading death only wastes time and possibly, a life.  
A major tunring point for Jack and the novel is the Airborne Toxic Event. This causes him to face his fear of death, due to his exposure to the radiation. The Toxic Event also causes these wonderful, mythical sunsets that Jack describes with incredibly romantic language. At the very end of the novel, DeLillo describes a scene with all of Jack's family and the town on the overpass to look at one of the beautiful sunsets. If the toxic event represents the fear of death, the sunsets represent a sort of great overcoming of the fear of death. By the end of the novel, Jack has come to terms with his own mortality, and the sunsets serve as a beautiful manifestation of this and a sort of solidarity between all the people in their suburban town who all must face their own mortality eventually.