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DELILLO, DON "WHITE NOISE."

Discusses how opening & closing sections of novel frame & exemplify main themes.

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This paper discusses the ways in which the opening and closing sections of Don DeLillo's White Noise frame and exemplify the novel's main themes. By concentrating on minutiae and specific detail, DeLillo paints a haunting picture of modern life. His opening and closing incidents are superficially similar, but what occurs between them throws an entirely new light on the observable reality he records. In fact, DeLillo is not concerned with recreating reality but with questioning the ordinary, and these two framing sequences provide a dramatic contrast between the world as it is usually perceived and the perception DeLillo suggests might provide more powerful meaning to everyday life. DeLillo attempts both to record the "white noise" that provides the masking background for modern life and to cut through the background clutter to hear what lies behind

By the time hebecomes one with the congregation on the overpass, knowing that the sunsetholds beauty but no answers, he has come to recognize that white noise isthe babble of humanity in general, the echoing murmur of intertwined lifeand death. . . The"white noise" of the title appears at first to be the backgrounddistractions that mask some underlying reality, preventing the observerfrom getting at the essential truth of things. It is not a mask for some deeper truth but instead exists as akind of connection to what being human means. You thoughthe would protect you" (287). In the end,Gladney is reluctant to go home (though, even there, he is not alone,having gathered his own crowd as a result of four marriages and thefathering of a miscellaneous number of children). New York: Viking, 1985.----------------------- 11 His opening and closing incidents aresuperficially similar, but what occurs between them throws an entirely newlight on the observable reality he records. Toyota Celica" (155). Things intheir actual state . . In fact, DeLillo is notconcerned with recreating reality but with questioning the ordinary, andthese two framing sequences provide a dramatic contrast between the worldas it is usually perceived and the perception DeLillo suggests mightprovide more powerful meaning to everyday life. Throughout the book, DeLillo periodically invokes brand names asthough they were holy phrases. He seems to have some mysterious purpose to thissuicidal act, and, almost because of his certainty, he arrives, unscathed,at the other side, leaving a trail of bewildered and horrified adults inhis wake. This paper discusses the ways in which the opening and closingsections of Don DeLillo's White Noise frame and exemplify the novel's mainthemes. Therefore, his listing of the things they bring with them, the kinds ofpeople who deliver them to the campus, and the physical surroundings wherethey arrive provides an expert sketch of Gladney's environment whilesuggesting that the individual students are not important to either thestory or to Gladney himself. The final effect is powerful. The crowd that has gathered at the endof the book to watch the sunset then disperses, "shyly, politely, car aftercar, restored to our separate and defensible selves" (325). Now, instead of being an observer, Gladney is a central figure inthe caravan of cars. What Wilder's expedition shows, however, is a greater reality. At theend, he is part of the group, waiting in line for his purchases to bedeciphered by the checkout scanner, finding comfort in the supermarkettabloids and his fellow shoppers, while the white noise that scoreseverything links him to a greater reality. What has changed, from the first chapter to the last, is Gladney'sview of his place in things. DeLillo attempts both torecord the "white noise" that provides the masking background for modernlife and to cut through the background clutter to hear what lies behind it. . He begins as a casual, slightly superiorobserver, providing an inventory of all the material goods being broughtonto the campus at the start of another semester. White Noise. Although the novel takes place ona Midwestern college campus and concerns Jack Gladney, a professor on staffthere, the professor's students play no role in the narrative, and DeLillowastes no time trying to make even one of them a flesh and blood character. . . Death is a central theme to DeLillo's book. The last chapter begins with a terrifying brush with death, asWilder, Gladney's stepson and perhaps the only purely innocent character inthe book, decides to ride his tricycle down an embankment and across sixlanes of expressway. It permeates everyaspect of Gladney's life, from the "dead souls babbling at the edge of adream" (4) to the novel's very last words, "the cults of the famous and thedead" (326). The peoplearrive to watch the sunset in waves, radiating uncertainty, awe, and adesperate desire for meaning. This,he believes, is the secret to Hitler's enduring fascination: "Crowds cometo form a shield against their own dying. He spends mostof the first paragraph simply listing objects, right down to "the junk foodstill in shopping bags - onion-and-garlic chips, nacho thins, peanut buttercreme patties, Waffelos and Kabooms, fruit chews and toffee popcorn; theDum-Dum pops, the Mystic mints" (3). Gladney and Babette, Wilder's mother, are so preoccupied withdeath and the fear of death that they go to ridiculous lengths to try toconquer their fear, while Wilder's purposeful little trip demonstrates thepower of simple ignorance and unconcern. Instead, he seeks refugein the newly-rearranged supermarket, filled with "sweet-tempered peopletaken to the edge" (326), finding comfort even in their panickeddisorientation. some mysterious separation" (1 5). This is the languageof waves and radiation, or how the dead speak to the living" (326) andwhere the huddled masses gain comfort from the promises of publicationslisted at the book's beginning: "the National Enquirer, the NationalExaminer, the National Express, the Globe, the World, the Star" (5). As things turned out, he is unable to try to fend off death by takinganother life, though his inability to kill his wife's seducer is more theresult of bungling incompetence than a loss of nerve. The essential details are identical. Gladney has made a professional specialty of the study of AdolphHitler, building an entire, world-renowned department around him at hiscollege: "When I suggested to the chancellor that we might build a wholedepartment around Hitler's life and work, he was quick to see thepossibilities" (4). Gladney and Babette, despite their fears and their bestefforts, will die one day, and they will have no say in "who will diefirst?" (3 , the question they spend so much time arguing over, as thoughthis were some rational decision either one could contract to have happen. The individual human beingis mortal. Hitler is larger than death. One of his central characters, Murray, isconcerned with pop culture influence, watching movies and making endlessnotes, as though the notes themselves were the reality he is recording, andDeLillo uses this approach, as well. When an industrial accident near thetown causes what authorities eventually term "the airborne toxic event,"the changing litany of expected symptoms of exposure - at one point,"nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath" (111), at another, "convulsions,coma, miscarriage" (121) - sounds the same as the lists of brand names -"Krylon, Rust-Oleum, Red Devil" (159) - and snippets of conversations -"'Virgin acrylic,' she said into the phone" (49) - that pepper his text. The miracle vitamins, the cures forcancer, the remedies for obesity. He implies that allthese things are being brought here to help their owners acquire knowledge,and the knowledge he himself offers is the specific life and acts of amonstrous dictator and mass murderer. The Hitler that he knows intimatelyhas, by virtue of being a killer rather than a dier, in Murray's words,achieved an immortality that Gladney's work helps perpetuate. Works CitedDeLillo, Don. Somethinggolden falls, a softness delivered to the air . in the brightpackaging, the jingles, the slice-of-life commercials, the productshurtling out of the darkness, the coded messages and endless repetitions,like chants, like mantras. The parents who drive off at the end of the opening scene leave thecrowded campus to face an uncertain, individual future, no longer protectedby their connection to the group. Uniform, white" (198).At first, Gladney finds this idea horrifying, but he eventually finds somemeasure of peace in being part of "a slowly moving line, satisfying, givingus time to glance at the tabloids in the racks" (326). Yet in the waves and radiation of everything around them, in thewhite noise that forms the backdrop for everything they are and everythingthey do, lies the key to their immortality. Yet, the crowdsultimately find sense and peace in the checkout line, where the scanners"decode the binary secret of every item, infallibly. that we slowly begin to disperse, shyly,politely, car after car, restored to our separate and defensible selves"(325). This closing passage also echoes the title of the first of the book'sthree sections, "Waves and Radiation," a phrase which he uses initially todescribe the means by which television images and radio broadcasts aretransmitted through the air. He was unable to"cure" himself of dying by killing other people. Gladney has built his life on the cult of"the famous and the dead" of the novel's last sentence (326), but it hasnot saved him as he expected it would. This time, however,the passengers in the cars have come to share what has recently become ashared meditation, the contemplation of the spectacular sunsets that nowhappen every night: "The sunsets linger and so do we . Very quickly, however, it also comes todescribe a process more central to DeLillo's overall theme, "some journeyout of life or death, . It is only Gladney's place inthe picture that has changed substantially. It is not until sometime after dark has fallen . . He ends by summing up the knowledge being offered to the group, ofwhich he is a willing, grateful member, while they wait in line to pay fortheir own packages of Dum-Dum pops and Waffelos: "The tales of thesupernatural and the extraterrestrial. At one point, his daughter, Steffi,breathes two words in her sleep, "two clearly audible words, familiar andelusive at the same time, words that seemed to have a ritual meaning, partof a verbal spell or ecstatic chant. Technology is transmitted through waves andradiation, but, DeLillo seems to be saying, what is transmitted issomething so primal that is transcends technology, bridging the chasmbetween the living and the dead. 'Coke it is, Coke it is, Coke is it,'" (51).Lists of nouns, proper nouns as well as the ordinary names of ordinarythings, form a significant part of DeLillo's structure, forcing the readerto look at all the objects which make up a modern life. After the sun has gone down, Gladney joins the congregation in thesupermarket, whose abrupt rearrangement becomes a metaphor for a modernworld in which the signposts are constantly changing. By the end of the novel, after brushes with death, infidelity, andattempted murder, DeLillo returns to lines of cars arriving for a communalevent and concludes in the supermarket, the source of all the Dum-Dum popsand junk food that arrived in his opening sequence. . Yet Hitler the human being did not escape death. To break off from the crowd is to risk death as an individual, toface dying alone" (73). Late in the book, Murray tells him, "Helpless andfearful people are drawn to magical figures, mythic figures, epic men whointimidate and darkly loom . The recitation has become first-person, plural,instead of third-person, detached. The individual dies butremains part of the whole: "Sound all around . When, late in the story, Gladney begins ruthlessly throwing thingsaway (again, listing them in copious detail), this act takes on an air ofdefiance. Murray argues, "Look at the wealth of data . White Noise begins with a description of a line of station wagonsarriving at the start of the college semester, carrying the luggage,equipment, and families of the arriving class of students. It is an intriguing litany; byproviding so much specific detail, he gives each item its own importance,while also echoing the advertising jingles and colorful packaging thatfirst gave each product its fame and therefore attracted the eye of thearriving consumers. . Ofthese hallowed texts, DeLillo writes, "Everything we need that is not foodor love is here in the tabloid racks" (326). White noise everywhere" (31 ). By concentrating on minutiae and specific detail, DeLillo paints ahaunting picture of modern life. As a purely literary device, DeLillo's list provides a clear pictureof the diverse interests and casual wealth of the arriving students withoutthe necessity of creating specific characters who will ultimately beunimportant to the story he is telling. . . By ridding himself of the accumulated detritus of his life, heis beginning to find himself. At the beginning, however, the objectsdefine the individuals: "This assembly of station wagons, as much asanything they might do in the course of the year, more than formalliturgies or laws, tells the parents they are a collection of the like-minded and the spiritually akin, a people, a nation" (3-4). For thecitizen of the modern world, Kabooms and Mystic mints are, in fact, holywords, representing greater concepts and spiritual experiences and invokedin the air in supplication of better, richer lives beyond the individualgrasp. Nevertheless, Gladneycannot help but take comfort in, at the end of the story, standing in asupermarket line, part of a crowd, surveying the tabloid headlines. Ultimately, he cando nothing but wait for the next spectacular sunset, the next communalevent, the next checker at the supermarket, the next publication deadlineon the next sensational tabloid. The imagery iscarefully chosen and expertly used. The opening and closing sequences of White Noise provide a masterfulframe for DeLillo's contemplation of contemporary life. Yet when Gladney ultimately confronts Babette's seducer, the man whodemanded her body in exchange for a pharmaceutical escape from fearingdeath, he has a sudden vision of "the precise nature of events. Yet his list also serves a deeper purpose, establishing the approachhe is taking to the whole story. Gladney believes that focusing on death, anticipating it,contemplating the nature of his own death and the consequences of anultimate lack of existence as a being in the known world will finally allowhim to overcome his fear of it and, perhaps, allow him to escape it. . As Murrayexplains, "The more people you kill, the more credit [against dyingyourself] you build up" (29 ). At the start of thebook, he was merely an observer of the shared sense of community. It is a fascinating exercise. The cults of the famous and the dead"(326). . . . . To become a crowd is to keep outdeath. The list withwhich he begins defines the environment he seeks to explore and suggeststhat understanding the objects may be more important than understanding thepeople who own them.

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