The safety of the community following the chemical spill is determined and defined by the authorities, the knowledge they are privy to and the manners by which they interpret that knowledge are unknowable to the public. However, their authority not only grants their conclusions credence, but solidifies their reality in the minds of the public. Jack's desire to reach the unknown and penetrate the veil of false images is what drives him to uncover the chemical properties of Dylar, and to seek out Mr. Grey. Furthermore, it is the keystone of his relationship with death: death is necessarily incomprehensible to living beings.
Despite Jack's apparent attempts to get close to death or to somehow reach it, these attempts are masked efforts to distance himself from it or to defeat it. Although he associates himself with Hitler -- a man who is synonymous with death -- this is done with the goal of immortalizing himself. The fact that he chooses Hitler in particular is reflective only of his preoccupancy with the subject of death, not of his desire to reach it. It is this preoccupancy that fosters the perception that he lacks an identity. Only by accepting the specific moment that he is in, the particular things he sees and hears, and the unique emotions of a single moment can he realize who he is. Since he perceives life as a plot punctuated by the period called death, requires that his quest to find himself be a challenge to death itself.
The plot that Delillo employs is very much representative of Jack's notion that action inevitably leads to inaction. He makes this explicit when he says, "All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers' plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children's games." (Delillo 26). Jack's life seems to follow this general trend. He is exposed to Nyodene D, and his condition is regarded as fatal. The drug habit and infidelity he discovers with his wife and the identity of the man who...
In the third section of the book Babette is cheating on Jack, hoping to gain access to a drug (Dylar) that treats people who fear dying. Clearly DeLillo is playing off of society's fear of death. Eventually Jack kills the man Babette was having liaisons with. White Noise was published in 1985, which makes DeLillo something of a clairvoyant because the author reflects on "…the way the mediations of television
Sangster, DeLillo, Nature and God What is the opposite of Nature? There are a number of different answers we could give in playing the game of finding an antonym. We are accustomed to speaking of "nature vs. nurture," but "nature" here is a shorthand for the phrase "human nature." In referring to Nature in its environmental sense, we are more likely to speak of "nature vs. culture" or "nature vs. art"
The second half, entitled "Airborne Toxic Event, however, serves the role of criticizing the reality of American society and the result of its obsession with consumerism. In the second half, a chemical spill releases a mysterious airborne toxic event over Jack's home area, requiring everyone to evacuate. This event forces Jack to confront his own mortality and society's general fear of death and how it attempts to prevent death
Critical Thinking in Humanities Essential Characteristics of Critical Thinking in Humanities We, the students of humanities, are aware that critical thinking and inquire are essential for our discipline. But what does it really mean? How do we understand and exercise critical thinking? The readings in this class taught me that critical thinking is learn best from real life experiences of people who have struggled and fought for freedom and liberation of the
Disillusionment in Postmodern American Literature The latter half of the twentieth century saw a raft of dramatic changes to American culture and society, bringing with them new forms living and thinking about the world. Beginning in the 1960s and continuing onward, the country saw a deep disillusionment with the suburban trappings of contemporary America, as Cold War anxiety combined with rampant consumerism to instill a sense of moral vacuity, which was
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