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Nick Tubach Professor Volpe Critical Writing 26 September 2012 White Noise: Modernism v. Post-Modernism In Don DeLillos novel, White Noise, the reader is fed a multitude of modern and post-modern views on life and its meaning. DeLillo juxtaposes convention at every turn and develops a prose that identifies itself as modern but criticizes itself through a postmodern lens. Two major characters, Jack Gladney and Murray Siskind, are DeLillos implements for portraying these modern and post-modern concepts. Post-modernism and modernism clash as the neurosis of death, the never ending simulacra, and the dissimilar qualities of Jack and Murray develop throughout the plot. White noise events activate the differences between modern convention and post-modern absurdity. Jack and Murray serve as the novels protagonist and antagonist because as Jack attempts to wrap his mind around the complexities of life and its meaning, Murray shoots down Jacks modernist views with post-modern absurdism. Death is the greatest unknown in life. No one knows what death is like since all those who experience it are no longer here and therefore cannot tell us what it is like. A fear of death is fairly common amongst mankind; it is a natural reaction for us humans to dislike change and such a drastic permutation like existence to nothingness could easily insight fear in a man. Death makes Jack completely neurotic, causing him to be compulsive, like buying the thick hemp rope, and to be obsessive with his wife about

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which of the two will die first. Perhaps this neurosis is rooted at a nostalgic sentiment, that the fear of death is really a desire for the sublimity of previous living. We all have a deep down fondness of the simplicity of childhood; where we had no fears of financial stability or death. This perhaps why Jack has such and affinity for Wilder: Jack is envious that he is simply too young to begin to understand life and death. Jacks greatest challenge is coming to terms with the fact that life has no meaning. He is so afraid of death because he is fearful that he will die before he can determine his lifes purpose. The most troublesome part about the Airborne Toxic Event for Jack is when he speaks to one of the SIMUVAC personnel. He is told that his exposure may, but also may not, lead to an untimely death. Jack is told, This doesnt mean anything is going to happen to you as such . . . It just means you are the sum total of your data. No man escapes that (141). Essentially his diagnosis is completely ambiguous because no matter what he is going to die and there was no proof of whether the billowing cloud will cause him to die sooner. Murray, Jacks antagonist, certainly does not help Jacks situation. Murray, on multiple occasions, speaks with Jack about death. He also talks to Jack about nostalgia, how it affects a persons outlook on life. Murray says to Jack, I dont trust anybodys nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. Its a settling of grievances between the present and the past (258). Murray tries to explain to Jack that life is about continuing forward, being aware that death is a part of life, rather than trying to run from death while desperately clutching onto sentiments of the past. Perhaps Jacks neurosis stems from him longing for the past. In another instance, Murray

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describes two types of people: Killers and Diers. He says, Most of us are diers. We dont have the disposition, the rage or whatever it takes to be a killer. We let death happen (291). Murray is attempting to say to Jack that he needs to become a killer in order to escape or cheat death. Murrays rationale is that a killer cheats death because the victim dies but the killer continues to live. This puzzles Jack because killing is a serious moral dilemma, but on the other hand could killing actually save him from death? In the over-saturated, over-replicated world that they live Jack really is unsure of what to make of anything. DeLillo deduces that contemporary living is purely recreations of the past, that nothing is original anymore. Everything has already been done and overdone to the extent that there is no longer any importance to whatever has been endlessly replicated. The original artist loses his authenticity and/or individuality due to the replication. Towards the beginning of the novel, Murray describes the Most Photographed Barn in America to Jack. He does not even describe what the barn actually looks like since that is not what makes the barn known. The barn is no longer a barn, it is merely a tourist attraction that can never shed that label. The over-replication completely devalued the image and significance of the barn. DeLillos world is full of these simulacra, where original and replica are impossible to differentiate. The more something is copied, the less distinguishable the origin and terminus become. For Jack and his family, just about everything has the same origin and terminus due to its repetition and therefore everything lacks value and importance. Shortly after the Airborne Toxic Event begins, sirens, bullhorns, and all sorts of other warnings are telling people in their right mind to

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evacuate immediately. Sadly, for the Gladney family, they are unable to pick up on most queues. After sitting down to dinner even after when they should have evacuated, the deafening siren in their town goes off, a completely obvious signal that it is time to leave. The over-saturation of disasters sensationalized on the television leave the family feeling almost unthreatened by the toxic cloud. The family went on eating, quietly and neatly, reducing the size of our bites, asking politely for things to be passed . . . there passed among us a sheepish hope that only in this way could we avoid being noticed (118). In a sense they felt that if they ignored the siren then the toxic event would ignore them too. They did not really feel a sense of danger because of the simulacra of the siren and natural disasters on the television; they were so depersonalized from it that they did not even react to it. Eventually they come to their senses and leave. When Jack talks to the SIMUVAC employee at the camp he concludes that they are using the real event in order to rehearse the simulation (139). This is a prime example of DeLillos juxtapositions: this completely contradicts conventional ideals. Simulations, with respect to the Airborne Toxic Event, are typically the predecessors to an actual disaster. DeLillo defies tradition and makes an assertion of absurdism by making the real event be the simulation of the simulation; in other words, by making the real event first he further emphasizes the point that simulacra have prevented man from being able to determine the difference between the origin and terminus. In a world of repetition and oversaturation intertextuality, or pastiche, is the only method of creating anything new since everything has already been done before.

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Jack, DeLillos protagonist, is manipulated and confused by the antagonist, Murray. Murray and Jack differ from one another in many ways. Jack is a modernist, feeling as though life is ordered and contains meaning and purpose. Murray is most certainly a post-modernist, embracing the absurdity of life and that it lacks meaning. Their outlooks on life may differ due to their upbringings. Jack is from a rural setting whereas Murray is from an urban setting. Jack perhaps became stuck in his own little world where he thought life panned out in a certain manner. Murray tries to break Jacks rigid worldview anytime he can. Murray plays mind games with Jack which he, as a Gladney, is completely oblivious to. Murray constantly asks about Babette, the children, Jacks job, all as a way to portray his minor jealousy, but more so as a way to confuse Jack further and try to push him to his breaking point. Murray basically wants Jack to mess up to get him out of the picture so that he can then be with Babette and take his job at the university. To Jack, life should have a higher meaning, to Murray, life is ridiculous: we simply exist until death. Both Jack and Murray differ from each other, DeLillos way of contrasting modernism with post-modernism. In DeLillos novel, White Noise, the reader is taken on a journey of conflicting modern and post-modern views on life and its meaning. In The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo, Philip Nel describes the juxtapositions giving DeLillos style its deep oppositional impulse (Nel 17). DeLillo juxtaposes conventionalities of life and the world. His prose identifies itself as modern but criticizes itself through a post-modern lens. The two main characters, Jack and Murray, are DeLillos implements for portraying these modern and post-modern concepts. Post-modernism and modernism clash as the

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neurosis of death, the never ending simulacra, and the dissimilar qualities of Jack and Murray develop throughout the novel. White noise events trigger tension between modern convention and post-modern absurdity. Jack and Murray serve as the novels protagonist and antagonist because as Jack attempts to wrap his mind around the complexities of life and its meaning, Murray shoots down Jacks modernist views with post-modern absurdism.