American Culture and Code: Technology, Reinforcement, and Collective Perception in Don DeLillo’s White Noise
$2.95
3 word format
document in English
social sciences
school essay
published 21/08/2007
review : Completed
level : Advanced
requested 1 times
Summary
DeLillo’s White Noise is largely a critique of American culture after World War II and after the popularity of home television in the 1950s. In White Noise, white noise itself has covered up a gaping hole in American culture. The hole is the obtrusive, persistent, and arguably natural “fear of death,” and leading up to the mid-’80s, DeLillo’s post-War white noise has become a distraction from mass death for the mass of Americans.
Table of Contents
- There is a constant struggle in the narrative (and DeLillo suggests in American culture as well) between 'American magic and dread?
- Jack and his family confuse the idea of death with actual, personal death
- The fear of death syndrome is also linked to the prominent theme of consumerism in White Noise, and in DeLillo's American society microcosm
- As suggested above, this type of consumerism has assumed a spiritual significance in the narrative, and as DeLillo implies, in American culture overall
- At the end of White Noise DeLillo ultimately criticizes the American mass media culture as a culture of addicts
- This passage, like much of White Noise, as well as television and media in general, is highly coded
Most downloaded documents over 30 days in social sciences Latest in the category social sciences From the same author
knowledge network
