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Jacob Sundeen Brady Bergeson ENGL 358 5 April 2011 New Historicism and Don DeLillos White Noise

August 12th, 1985: The Japanese airline Flight 123 crashes in Japan, killing 520 people and making its mark as the worst single-aircraft disaster in history. That same year, DeLillo publishes his book White Noise in which Jack Gladney and his family huddle together in front of the TV to witness a plane crash in all of its discordant glory: they know the chilling ramifications of such an event, but in spite of this, they find themselves constantly coming back for more as they become completely absorbed in these documentary clips of calamity and death (DeLillo 64). Like the Gladneys in White Noise, we are constantly shaped by the social forces and cultural events that culminate around us, and similarly, so has the text been shaped by societal influences that have both directly and indirectly had an effect on the author DeLillo. The relationship between a text and society can be more closely scrutinized under the lens of New Historicism which claims that an intricate connection exists between an aesthetic object a text or any work of art and society (Bressler 219). This intricate connection suggests that White Noise is not solely a product of Don DeLillo but of the society that contains DeLillo: the same society that he targets in his novel. To better understand this connection that exists between the text and society, it is necessary to examine the relationship on a multitude of levels: an analysis of the cultural and social moments surrounding the novels publication and the authors personal

experiences that may have had an influence on the text, and, ultimately, how this comes to affect the reader themselves. Don DeLillo, the son of an immigrant Italian Catholic family, has lived through many critical moments in our nations history: the wars and dramatic social changes of the 60s, the disillusionment of government and drug-induced era of the 70s, the nearly half-a-century fear of all-out nuclear war brought upon by the Cold War, the transformation of the television and the rise of technology and computers in the 80s, and the overall public fear of terrorism and incidents such as the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl that permeated much of the later-half of the 20th century. In accordance with the theories of Michel Foucault, Don DeLillo has, by doing nothing more than simply existing in this particular niche of history, developed his own episteme which, in effect, determines how he views reality. Everyone has an episteme unique to themselves because each era or people develop their own episteme...[that] controls how that era or group of people views reality (220); similarly, as I sit here and scrutinize the relationship between culture and White Noise, I am looking through a distinct lens, a vision of truth that is wholly mine. The implications of this are that the DeLillo of 1985 has a completely different view of reality than that of me in the 21st century, and we will each apply a different sense of reality, or truth, to the text of White Noise. However, just because the episteme that belongs to me and the episteme that belongs to DeLillo are inherently different, that does not mean that a mutually understanding cannot be reached. Foucault uses the metaphor of an archaeologist to represent what one must do to analyze another persons episteme and to essentially see the world as they would have seen it: Just as an archaeologist must slowly and meticulously dig through various layers of earth to uncover the symbolic treasures of the past, historians must expose each layer of discourse that comes together to shape a peoples episteme (220). Thus, it is essential to

examine the layers of history that play a role in DeLillos life in order to better understand his episteme; however, this examination will not reveal a monological view of his particular view of reality but, instead, will reveal a wide array of discourses that formulates his truth. One of these discourses contains the sense of fear and dread that pervaded much of the time in the era leading up to the publication of White Noise, and it can be seen having a unique effect on DeLillos episteme. Fear was everywhere thanks to the Cold War. The Russians were powerful, but so were the Americans. However, both sides knew how equally matched their powers were and that the world would effectively end if either side initiated a nuclear conflict, but this didnt stop each side from stockpiling more and more nuclear weapons. This intimidation contest lasted for the better part of the second half of the 20th century, and anxiety over a nuclear conflict, including the effects of exposure to nuclear gas, reached a climax in the 1980s. The fear of exposure to harmful toxins is an evident theme in DeLillos White Noise especially when considering that the airborne toxic event constitutes much of the narrative. DeLillo even states that this toxic phenomenon served as inspiration for the book: I lived abroad for three years, and when I came back to this country in 1982, I began to notice something on television which I hadn't noticed before. This was the daily toxic spill--there was the news, the weather, and the toxic spill. This was a phenomenon no one even mentioned. It was simply a television reality. It's only the people who were themselves involved who seemed to be affected by them. No one even talked about them. This was one of the motivating forces of White Noise. (Gardner)

So while DeLillo asserts to the general fear of such a toxic spill during this time, it seems that the reality of such an event was always someone elses reality, and this feeling is expressed in White Noise when Jack Gladney scoffs at the idea of the toxic event actually affecting him: These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areasDid you ever see a college professor rowing a boat down his own street in one of those TV floods? (DeLillo 112) This ignorance to the reality of disasters, the typical it-will-never-happen-to-me reaction is, as affirmed by Jack in White Noise, a product of television which was happening to experience a dramatic spike in popularity around this time. The advent of cable in the 1980s transformed television in the American household and caused such a surge in viewing that by 1985, 68% of all American households (60 million) had cable television service, and by 1986, 82% of American adults watched television daily, and the average household had the television set on for seven hours a day (Manning). Television became a family event; ironically, a way to get the family together without actually conversing or recognizing their presence. This is portrayed in White Noise by the Gladneys use of the TV as a family night: They simply sit in front of the TV without speaking a word to each other while they take in the media onslaught of disaster footage (such as the plane crash mentioned at the beginning of the essay), advertisements, and skewed facts and statistics. DeLillo recognized the power of televisions white noise to influence people which is why he originally wanted to title his novel Panasonic instead of White Noise: DeLillo argued to his editor that Panasonic as a title is crucial because [t]he novel is filled with the sounds of peoples voices, with sirens, loudspeakers, bullhorns, kitchen appliances, with radio and TV transmissions, with references to beams, rays, sounds waves, etc. (Weekes 286). Panasonic was and still is a powerful entertainment company that specializes in the manufacturing of televisions and other home

theatre items, but due to copyright issues, DeLillo was unable to use this title. However, White Noise is just as effective of a title as Panasonic would have been as they both embody the media-saturated society of the television age from which a surplus of data and an entropic blanket of information glut (286) flows through the consciousnesses of its viewers. A new reality was formed for this era: a reality in which materialism and commercialism have become a new source of meaning (289). DeLillo successfully captures the essence of this new episteme in by incorporating the white noise of Jacks society into the structure of the plot. The television voices, advertisement jingles, and songs constantly interrupt the narration of the story and impose themselves upon the lives of the novels characters. This bombardment of images, sounds, and information from television, the waves and radiation, constituted the white noise of Jack and his family: It became the narration of their lives, it and followed them everywhere; there was no escaping it. 25 years later, our generation can certainly relate to Jacks media-infused episteme as the television, and technology as a whole, has expanded, grown in power, and come to have even more of an influence over the lives of Americans than it did in the 1980s. It is in this fact that DeLillos novel seems ahead of its time because the media and technology-driven world that Jack Gladney lives in is nearly indistinguishable from our own. In DeLillos world and our own, truth becomes what you see on the television and on the computer screen. An example of this new sense of truth can be found in Jacks daughter Bees reaction to the fact that there will be no media coverage on the plane that nearly fell out of the sky over Blacksmith: They [the passengers] went through all that for nothing? (DeLillo 92) Her understanding of reality consists of what is on television, so if something doesnt broadcast on television, then it is almost as if it didnt happen. Another example of this is made evident when Jack becomes disturbed by

the fact that the reality of his own mortality can determined by an artificial computer that pounds out numbers and signs. Technology gives him the truth: that his exposure to Nyodene-D will eventually cause him death, but he is unable to accept it, unable to cope with this reality. The ubiquitous reality of death is something that has always managed to strike fear into the hardiest of souls, and since mankinds beginning, it has been the great mystery that people have always tried answer or explain in some way. The answer to death has often resulted in a mode of religious belief that infers that death is only the beginning: death is redefined, either as form or transition to afterlife, allowing one not to deal (or preventing one from dealing) with the reality and finality of death (Hardin 21). People do not want to have to accept death because the unknown scares them, and DeLillo tackles this inner struggle of humans to remove the reality from death (21). DeLillos reasons for exploring this issue can be traced back to his childhood: he grew up a Catholic, and its doctrines emphasis on certain aspects of death serves as a root for this fear: For a Catholiche's raised with the idea that he will die any minute now and that if he doesn't live his life in a certain way this death is simply an introduction to an eternity of pain" (Gardner). The prospects of an eternity of pain can really cause one to dread death even further, and this feeling of dread is displayed in both Jack and his wife Babette. Unlike Jacks son Heinrich, who views death in a calculating manner, and his friend and colleague Murray, who is fascinated by it, Jack and Babette are terrified by death, and so afraid, in fact, that it nearly makes the act of living unbearable for them. Jack uses the persona of Hitler and the historical act of genocide that he initiated to attempt to hide the insignificance of his own death, and Babette takes a test drug named Dylar that is supposed to make her forget about death but, ultimately, it causes her greater depression. Both are constantly looking for ways to separate the reality from death in order to make death seem less tangible, and in the final act of the novel,

Jack finally seems to get his liberation from death in the form of a gift from his father-in-law: the .25 caliber Zumwalt automatic. In White Noise, Murray explains to Jack that violence is a form of rebirth. The dier passively succumbs. The killer lives on, so essentially, violence is a way of controlling death (DeLillo 277). With this idea in mind, Jack begins to carry the Zumwalt with him everywhere he goes because it gives him a feeling of power: a reality I could control, secretly dominate (283). Jack cant accept the reality of his own death, but he can accept the reality of other peoples death; consequently, the fact that he can now control this reality for other people empowers him and makes him feel greater than death. However, the irony of all of this is that in reality, well, at least in our reality, the .25 caliber Zumwalt automatic doesnt even exist. This fictional piece of weaponry isnt simply an afterthought of DeLillos narration, though, because the name Zumwalt does, in fact, exist. Elmo Zumwalt III, son of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt II, was a victim of the United States Navys massive defoliation campaign during the early years of the Vietnam War. Hundreds of tons of the chemical Agent Orange were spread across the Vietnamese countryside in order to remove the protective cover held by the North Vietnamese Army. Tragically, the plan didnt just fail but also ended up causing many U.S. soldiers to become contaminated with toxic poising from contact with the Agent Orange. By the end of this project, Zumwalts father not only had to grieve the loss of his son, but had to live with the fact that he was, as revealed in an 1970s interview, the instrument of my sons tragedy since he was the architect and overseer of the Agent Orange defoliation project (Carter 115). DeLillo references this grief of the Zumwalt family through Jack Gladney and his exposure to the toxin Nyodene-D. The two events, the Agent Orange project in Vietnam and the airborne toxic event in Blacksmith, parallel each other

in certain ways: both toxins were of human design and like the actual Agent Orange, DeLillos Nyodene cloud tragically destroys more than it was intended to (116). Similarly, just as the Admiral Zumwalt caused himself great personal grief through his orchestration of the Agent Orange project, Jack uses the Zumwalt automatic to initiate a plan to kill his wifes illegitimate lover that ultimately ends in failure and a reciprocal wound. Both tried to control their own death by killing others, and both ended up in pain, emotional or physical, as a result of their actions. In the end, the Zumwalt in DeLillos novel becomes more than just a weapon: it becomes a metaphor for the effects of violence on peoples perception of reality. It is no coincidence that DeLillo named Jacks weapon the .25 caliber Zumwalt automatic, and in fact, the Zumwalt automatic could have never existed in White Noise without the historical context that it represents. As examining the historical and social context of a novel has revealed, society and literature are inextricably linked: Each one is inevitably influenced by the other, and in some cases, such as DeLillos White Noise, the one could not exist without the other. The Zumwalt automatic, the white noise of television, the fear of death and toxic exposure, and even the title itself could not have existed in White Noise without the influence of DeLillos own experiences and involvement in society. The underlying theme of the novel, the thing that drives it forward, is the concept of the stranglehold that our societys white noise has on our own lives. This theme, while being an obvious product of DeLillos experiences in society, can still be seen at work in our lives today. We are constantly shaped by all of the white noise around us: the television shows, the advertisements, the movies, and the omnipresence of all the technology that constantly hammers us for attention. We perceive our world through these waves and radiation, and our reality changes with it: An episteme that is not much unlike the one found in the world

of Jack Gladney. It is in this way the DeLillos novel is truly a consummate work of society in the past, present, and the future: it was directly influenced by events that preceded it while simultaneously commentating on the present state of society and, perhaps unknowingly, serving as a vessel in which to analyze our society in the years to come.

Works Cited Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007. Print. Carter, Steve. DeLillos White Noise. Explicator 58 (2000): 115 116. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. Web. 4 April 2011. DeLillo, Don. White Noise. 25th Anniversary ed. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009. Print. Gardner, Curt. Don DeLillo Biography. Don DeLillos America A Don DeLillo Site. 28 March 2011. Web. 4 April 2011. Hardin, Michael. Postmodernisms Desire for Simulated Death: Andy Warhols Car Crashes, J.G. Ballards Crash, and Don DeLillos White Noise. LIT: Literature Interpretation Thoery 13 (2002): 21 50. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. Web. 31 March 2011. Manning, Jason. Television. The Eighties Club: The Politics and Pop Culture of the 1980s. 2006. Web. 4 April 2011. Weekes, Karen. Consuming and Dying: Meaning and the Marketplace in Don DeLillos White Noise. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 18 (2007): 285 302. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. Web. 31 March 2011.

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