Commodity: Triggering Uncertainty and Dilemma in Delillo’s White Noise
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v6i6.1202Abstract
Postmodern conditions and experiences, specifically, uncertainties and contradictions, multiple interpretations or perspectives, rejection of universal, the loss of individual in the face of plurality, precede some kind of inherent predicament and dilemma as a residue or by-product of the constant commodification of life. Don Delillo’s White Noise, as a product of the postmodern era by a postmodern thinker, incorporates these traits, and predominantly, the underlying dilemma. One of the issues of this research is to trace in this novel these postmodern contradictions and dilemmas, and subsequent bathos of consumer society, under the burden of intensified productivism. This research also aims at scrutinizing these socio-personal postmodern dilemmas in the characters of the novel and ends up analyzing some psychosomatic predicaments in their deeds and thoughts relating to the personal experiences and contexts of the readers of this novelReferences
Aaron, Daniel. "How to Read Don DeLillo."Introducing Don DeLillo.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991. 67-81.
Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings.Edited by Mark Poster. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988.
DeCurtis, Anthony. "'An Outsider in This Society': An Interview with Don DeLillo." Introducing Don DeLillo.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991. 43-66.
Delillo, Don. White Noise. London: Penguin Books, 1985
--- David L. Ulin (interviewer), "Finding reason in an age of terror". The Los Angeles Times, Apr. 15, 2003. <http://perival.com/delillo/ddinterviews.html>
Ferraro, Thomas. "Whole Families Shopping at Night!"New Essays on White Noise.Ed.Frank Lentricchia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. 15-38, 174.
Lentricchia, Frank. "Introduction".New Essays on White Noise.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. 1-14.
---. "Tales of the Electronic Tribe."New Essays on White Noise.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. 87-114.
Marx, Karl. Estranged Labour: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
Nadotti, Maria. ‘‘An Interview with Don DeLillo.’’Salmagundi100 (1993): 86–97.
Osteen, Mark (Ed), Text and Criticism: White Noise, the Viking Critical Library, Penguin Books: London, 1998.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).