5.23.2011
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.
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.
5.15.2011
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.
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.
4.09.2011
Image Study: Jack Gladney's Academic Robe, "The Most Photographed Barn in America", Rain, and Car Crashes in the Snow
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| "The Rev. Benjamin Jowett." Cartoon. Postaprint: Antique Maps and Prints. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. <http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/p-10033.jpg>. |
Throughout White Noise, Jack Gladney places emphasis on the academic robe he must wear as a professor. He likes "clearing [his] arm from the folds of the garment to look at [his] watch...because the simple act of checking the time is transformed by this flourish" (DeLillo 9). The robe is not only a dignifying garment for Jack Gladney, but a protective cover that gives him a sense of control. When talking to a SIMUVAC agent about whether he was harmed by his exposure to Nyodene D, Jack Gladney "wanted [his] academic gown..." when faced with the possibility of early death (DeLillo 142). Like a child yearning for their blanket or stuffed animal, Jack wanted his academic robe, because it gives him confidence and authority.
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| Clow, Jeff. The Most Photographed Barn in America. Photograph. Flickr. 28 Aug. 2006. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. <http://farm1.static.flickr.com/92/243836982_c3025b2bd5.jpg>. |
"The Most Photographed Barn in America", however seemingly insignificant, makes a philosophical statement. Dozens of tourists are taking pictures of the barn, but Murray notes, "no one sees the barn...once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn" (DeLillo 12). This conclusion suggests that the photographers aren't capturing the barn, but the idea that it is the most photographed barn. The barn loses it's significance when it's significance is pointed out. Murray also says, "We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura....We only see what the others see" (DeLillo 12). Jack Gladney and Murray Siskind's visit to "The Most Photographed Barn in America" corresponds with one of the important themes in White Noise: conformity.
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| Photograph. Cars for Keeps. Cars for Keeps, 6 Apr. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. <http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/images/2008/09/09/wipers.jpg>. |
Rain is an image in the novel that serves as a discussion topic between Jack Gladney and his son, Heinrich. The real discussion is rooted in the difference between actuality and illusion. When Jack tries to reason with his obstinate son that it is indeed raining, Heinrich responds, "You're so sure that's rain. How do you know it's not sulfuric acid from factories across the river? How do you know it's not fallout from a war in China? You want an answer here and now...How do I know that what you call rain is really rain? What is rain anyway?" Heinrich struggles with a very complex metaphysical matter. Is human perception of reality real? Heinrich declares that one is never completely sure of anything.
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| Reed, Judy. Photograph. The Post. The Post, Dec. 2009. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. <http://cedarspringspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/N-Accident11.jpg>. | |
Television
"For most people there are only two places in the world. Where they live and their TV set. If a thing happens on television, we have every right to find it fascinating, whatever it is." Page 66
Rhetoric Study
Pages 45-46:
"Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex? How do you know whether something is really what you want to do or just some kind of nerve impulse in the brain? Some minor little activity takes place somewhere in this unimportant place in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana. How do I know I really want to go and it isn't just some neurons firing or something? Maybe it's just an accidental flash in the medulla and suddenly there I am in Montana and I find out I really didn't want to go there in the first place. I can't control what happens in my brain, so how can I be sure what I want to do ten seconds from now, much less Montana next summer? It's all this activity in the brain and you don't know what's you as a person and what's some neuron that just happens to fire or just happens to misfire. Isn't that why Tommy Roy killed those people?
In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hard-ware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed that something or deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies."
The main focus of the rhetoric used in this passage is to show how society, the characters in the novel, and interactions are becoming depersonalized and highly mechanized. The diction is slightly pretentious, as it is throughout most of the novel. The first paragraph uses devices to show how people themselves are becoming mechanized. Scientific terminology is used, such as: "cortex," "neurons," and "medulla" (though it's not too convoluted and still understandable) to show how such a personal thing like thinking and making decisions is not being thought of as highly impersonal, and that the human brain functions just like a machine.
The second paragraph shows how interactions are depersonalized and the people in this society prefer that. It's interesting how the only instance of using personal diction (such as "relief and gratitude" and "support and approval") occurs when the narrator is talking about his interaction with a machine. He even describes the interaction as "pleasing," which is very telling of how people in this society view other people. They prefer interacting with machines that are "sitting in a locked room in some distant city." The author uses asyndeton ("I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request") in order to emphasize how automated the process is. It's also interesting how the author has included the little detail of the "deranged person" who was being "escorted from the bank by two armed guards." The juxtaposition of this sentence with Jack Gladney's interaction with the machine system at the bank also conveys the idea that people in this society much prefer the efficiency of interactions with machines, no matter how depersonalized these interactions are.
"Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex? How do you know whether something is really what you want to do or just some kind of nerve impulse in the brain? Some minor little activity takes place somewhere in this unimportant place in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana. How do I know I really want to go and it isn't just some neurons firing or something? Maybe it's just an accidental flash in the medulla and suddenly there I am in Montana and I find out I really didn't want to go there in the first place. I can't control what happens in my brain, so how can I be sure what I want to do ten seconds from now, much less Montana next summer? It's all this activity in the brain and you don't know what's you as a person and what's some neuron that just happens to fire or just happens to misfire. Isn't that why Tommy Roy killed those people?
In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hard-ware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed that something or deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies."
The main focus of the rhetoric used in this passage is to show how society, the characters in the novel, and interactions are becoming depersonalized and highly mechanized. The diction is slightly pretentious, as it is throughout most of the novel. The first paragraph uses devices to show how people themselves are becoming mechanized. Scientific terminology is used, such as: "cortex," "neurons," and "medulla" (though it's not too convoluted and still understandable) to show how such a personal thing like thinking and making decisions is not being thought of as highly impersonal, and that the human brain functions just like a machine.
The second paragraph shows how interactions are depersonalized and the people in this society prefer that. It's interesting how the only instance of using personal diction (such as "relief and gratitude" and "support and approval") occurs when the narrator is talking about his interaction with a machine. He even describes the interaction as "pleasing," which is very telling of how people in this society view other people. They prefer interacting with machines that are "sitting in a locked room in some distant city." The author uses asyndeton ("I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request") in order to emphasize how automated the process is. It's also interesting how the author has included the little detail of the "deranged person" who was being "escorted from the bank by two armed guards." The juxtaposition of this sentence with Jack Gladney's interaction with the machine system at the bank also conveys the idea that people in this society much prefer the efficiency of interactions with machines, no matter how depersonalized these interactions are.
Themes in American Literature: Ideal American Communities
Don DeLillo uses the town of Blacksmith and the College-on-the-Hill to illustrate ideal American communities. By naming the school that Jack Gladney teaches at, “College-on-the-Hill”, the institution is immediately put upon a pedestal. The simple, good-natured town of Blacksmith and the college epitomize the idea of utopian suburbs.
At the beginning of the novel, Jack Gladney describes the “long shining line [of station wagons] that coursed through the west campus” (DeLillo 3). These station wagons- symbols of conventional conformity- are filled with college students returning from summer break. Gladney notes the “assembly of station wagons, as much as anything they might do in the course of the year, more than formal liturgies or laws, tells the parents they are a collection of the like-minded and spiritually akin, a people, a nation” (DeLillo 4). The station wagon is a stereotype of the all-American, middle-class family. In Gladney’s perspective, it is also apart of the charade that these families put on so that they can fit in.
Murray Siskind, a visiting professor at the College-on-the-Hill, is from a nearby city. His accounts of city life contrast the “small-town setting” of Blacksmith (DeLillo 10). Murray Siskind reveals to Jack Gladney that “[he] can’t help being happy in a town called Blacksmith” (DeLillo 11). He says that he “[wants] to be free of cities and sexual entanglements…[In cities] you get off the train and walk out of the station and you are hit with the full blast. The heat of air, traffic and people. The heat of food and sex. The heat of tall buildings” (DeLillo 10). Not only does Blacksmith differ from big cities physically, but it differs from big cites morally. The juxtaposition of the “small-town setting” and the city, exaggerates Blacksmith’s moral purity.
The primary settings of the novel, Blacksmith and the College-on-the-Hill represent common America: the values, the people, and even the uniformity that suburbs force people to succumb to.
At the beginning of the novel, Jack Gladney describes the “long shining line [of station wagons] that coursed through the west campus” (DeLillo 3). These station wagons- symbols of conventional conformity- are filled with college students returning from summer break. Gladney notes the “assembly of station wagons, as much as anything they might do in the course of the year, more than formal liturgies or laws, tells the parents they are a collection of the like-minded and spiritually akin, a people, a nation” (DeLillo 4). The station wagon is a stereotype of the all-American, middle-class family. In Gladney’s perspective, it is also apart of the charade that these families put on so that they can fit in.
Murray Siskind, a visiting professor at the College-on-the-Hill, is from a nearby city. His accounts of city life contrast the “small-town setting” of Blacksmith (DeLillo 10). Murray Siskind reveals to Jack Gladney that “[he] can’t help being happy in a town called Blacksmith” (DeLillo 11). He says that he “[wants] to be free of cities and sexual entanglements…[In cities] you get off the train and walk out of the station and you are hit with the full blast. The heat of air, traffic and people. The heat of food and sex. The heat of tall buildings” (DeLillo 10). Not only does Blacksmith differ from big cities physically, but it differs from big cites morally. The juxtaposition of the “small-town setting” and the city, exaggerates Blacksmith’s moral purity.
The primary settings of the novel, Blacksmith and the College-on-the-Hill represent common America: the values, the people, and even the uniformity that suburbs force people to succumb to.
4.04.2011
Character Study
In Don Delillo’s White Noise, there are several main characters introduced throughout the novel. The main character and narrator of the story is named Jack Gladney. He has a strong fear of dying and spends much of his time worrying about this. He constantly wonders about him and his wife’s death and asks “who will die first?” (30). He is the chairman of “Hitler Studies” at the College-on-the-Hill. Murray Siskind, a professor at the College-on-the-Hill, obsesses over his desire to teach an “Elvis studies” program, similar to Jack’s Hitler’s studies. He always tries to impress others with his highly academic dialect, even for the simplest conversations. For example, when at the supermarket, he overanalyzed the simple art of packaging into a way more complex thing “flavorless packaging…I feel I’m not only saving money but contributing to some kind of spiritual consensus” (18). He’s a satire of the modern college professor. Babette is Jack’s husband; she teaches a posture class and raises the children, but her main occupation involves comforting Jack “whatever she is doing, makes me feel sweetly rewarded, bound up with a full-souled woman”(5). That is until she is caught for having an affair with Willy Mink, “an unsupervised well-built human” (300), or “Mr. Gray” who trades the experimental drug “Dylar” for sex. He’s very mysterious and really isn’t mentioned much until the end of the novel. Jack and Babette have many children, some from previous marriages. The more significant children to the book are Heinrich, Steffie, Denise, and Wilder. Denise is the bossy eleven-year-old daughter who criticizes Babette for several things such as her health. For example, when Denise saw Babette chewing gum, she said “that stuff causes cancer…in case you didn’t know” (41). Steffie is the innocent and sensitive seven-year-old daughter who has difficulty witnessing people on television get hurt, physically and emotionally such as when she was “brought close to tears by a sitcom husband arguing with his wife” (64). Heinrich, the fourteen-year-old son, is often characterized as awkward, the oddball in the family. He’s dubious and constantly disagreeing with Jack. Jack believes “I have a sense that his ready yielding to our wishes and demands is a private weapon of reproach” (22). Wilder is the slowly-developing son who never talks in the novel but cries a ton but still seems to comfort his parents the most out of all the children “there was something permanent and soul-struck in this crying” (77). Although some of these characters have larger roles than others, each brings an important significance to the plot of the novel.
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