American Consumerism Don Delilo’s White Noise - 1919 Words

In Don Delilo’s, White Noise different themes are displayed throughout the novel. Some themes are the fear of death, loss of identity, technology as the enemy, and American consumerism. The society represented in the novel views people as objects and emotionally detached from many things. Death is always in the air and trapped in peoples mind. The culture that’s represented in the novel adds to the loss of individualism, but also adds to the figurative death of the characters introduced in the novel. What is white noise? The definition is a noise containing many frequencies. White noise is connected with technology, which is one of the themes in the novel as well. It consist of the background noises that follows throughout the narrative.†¦show more content†¦When she is confronted she completely denies it. She was so desperate for the drug because she thought it would end her constant fear of death. â€Å"Im afraid to die,...I think about it all of the time... it haunts me Jack, I cant get it off my mind. I know Im not supposed to experience such a fear so consciously and so steadily.† (DeLillo, 186-187) She hoped the drug would end thoughts and comments, like the one demonstrated, that she was willing to ruin her marriage. While she would have the affair, she would wear a mask. Her reasoning was to hide his identity, but in reality it was to hide hers. She wears specific outfits for certain occasions, something like different costumes for different personas. Her constant costume change shows she is uncertain of her identity. She is trying to hide her true self so she will never have to figure out who she truly is. It’s very ironic that Babette’s fear of death haunts her everyday and lingers in her every thought, when the truth of the matter is that she died a long time ago. She lost her true self and who she really is. A person that focuses on death never lives so therefore her fear became her reality. Figurative death is much worse than literal death and what she is living is figurative death. â€Å"We try to face death through crowds, through safety in numbers, but we must ultimately face death alone.† (Grade Saver 1) Staying apart of the group