Don Delillo's White Noise And The Dismantlement Of Filters

“Life...Made better”, this is promising the slogan for Dash In convenience stores. It is a promise that stopping at their store will improve your life. It is a promise that you are not lying to yourself every time you step through those glass doors. In the book White Noise by Don DeLillo, readers experience the story of this kind of lie and it’s consequences. The story follows an introspective college professor and his dealings with his fear of death. It does so against the background of a busy family life, full of colorful characters. White Noise highlights the truths of humanity in a satirical fashion, expertly weaving the American dream into the troubled psyche of the main character, Jack. White Noise reveals that the modern tools of

With the use of emotion, Didion is able to describe the horrifying causes the Santa Ana has on human behavior through murders and horrible wind conditions. “On the first day

Her language become more and more crude, especially when she mentions how her “flesh seems to bond to the seat” (181). The reader can easily detect her ever-mounting anger with the situation she has put herself in and what at first seemed like a heroic act ends up being one leading to pure defeat. As an extension to this idea, Ehrenreich shows the reader how certain hardships can make it difficult to try new things. In multiple instances throughout the essay she uses crude language to display her disgusted thoughts and sense of hopelessness, but it can be seen specifically in the introduction. The introduction is based off of her entire experience; after her jobs at Hearthside and Jerry’s. She compares the environment at Jerry’s to a human body, and not in a very pleasant way: “The kitchen is cavern, a stomach leading to the lower intestine that is the garbage and dishwashing area…” She also uses descriptive items of food to depict its scent, combining strange and appalling odors such as “decomposing lemon wedges [and] water-logged toast crusts” (179). These phrases themselves create a negative image of the restaurant, commanding the readers to question how she could have possibly been forced to work in such horrible conditions. Ehrenreich’s rough language effectively shows certain emotions brought out by the transition from writer to waitress, a white collar to a blue collar job, and the hardships that it brought.

Throughout life, one is faced with many experiences, and how one deals with those experience shapes one’s life. Laurie Channer’s Las Mantillas and Margaret Atwood’s It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers share the same theme of action versus inaction, however they define it from opposing perspectives. Action and inaction are complete opposites thus leading to completely different results. Whether taking action or remaining passive, strong feelings occur that can impact one’s life. Distance is also a huge factor in whether a person takes action or not, which is explored in both texts. While Channer’s Las Mantillas emphasizes the positive impact taking action has on an individual and society and Atwood’s It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers critiques the effects of inactivity, both agree that when faced with injustice it is vital to take action for one’s beliefs.

The novel Dark Inside written by Jeyn Roberts is a fantastic apocalyptic themed novel. It is clearly evident how the three literary devices Inciting Incident, Point of View and Conflict shape the reader’s vision of the story. The Inciting Incident of this book creates a dramatic visual image as an effective hook into the story for the reader based on their interest, the Point of View from which this story is written in gives the reader a better understanding of the story and the effective use of Conflict in a book rises suspense and interest in the

Life is made up of lines. Lifelines, timelines, lines in the grocery store, plot lines, etc. Lines encompass many different aspects of life. Every person follows a different set of lines, guarding a few exceptions like birth and death. In the book White Noise by Don DeLillo readers get to experience different lines in the characters lives that may or may not correspond to readers own lives. The book White Noise even starts out by mentioning a line. The first line of the book remarks on the “long shining line [of station wagons] that coursed through west campus” (DeLillo 3). The author chose to first introduce readers to the story through the use of something as simple and intriguing as a line and it captured attention right away. The book

Don DeLillo's award-winning novel White Noise takes the idea of the supremacy of false images to the extreme. Through various scenarios, such as the airborne toxic event and the Dylar dilemma, DeLillo critiques contemporary society's over-dependence on false images. The characters in the novel that exemplify this over-dependence appear humorous on one hand, yet tragic on the other. The humor comes from the novel's characters behaving like cartoon characters who continually get hurt, but keep coming back for more. The novel's characters keep getting hurt by false images, yet continue to believe in them, causing the reader to smack his or her head in astonishment.

She distastefully compares the kitchen to bodily organs, stating that “the kitchen is a cavern, a stomach leading to the lower intestine that is the garbage and dishwashing area” (179). When she makes this comparison, Ehrenreich gets the reader to associate the kitchen with foul organs such as the lower intestine. As the reader makes the association between the familiar, repulsive organs and the unfamiliar behind-the-scenes Jerry’s kitchen, Ehrenreich can more deeply convey the dirty nature of the kitchen. Along with metaphors, Ehrenreich uses evocative diction; she remarks that “the garbage and dishwashing area . . . issue bizarre smells combining the edible and the offal: creamy carrion, pizza barf, and that unique and enigmatic Jerry's scent - citrus fart” (179). Words like “carrion”, “barf” and “fart” connote feelings of disgust, repugnance, and revulsion. By evoking these strong feelings in the reader, Ehrenreich gives her audience a taste of the unattractive nature of the blue collar

With all the background noise within society drowning out what is of genuine prominence, what is it that citizens should tune in to? In Adrianna de Barros’s Blinding Lights, she analyzes the detrimental repercussion of this irritant and the distractions that it (the media) constructs. Through the use of vivid imagery and sensory overload, Barros’s poem functions as a social commentary on the inimical effects of being absorbed by the constant flow of media coverage.

White Noise by Don Delillo and Santa Land Diaries by David Sedaris both provide criticism on contemporary American life in different ways. Delillo presents complex characters who have issues adapting to the new wave of change their environment presents every day, while Sedaris recounts a factual moment in his life that also presents a change in his environment, but his is by choice. However, in this essay the focus will be primarily on the argument that David Sedaris and Don Delillo critique modem American culture in Santa Land Diaries and White Noise by using cynicism and by identifying the blurring of fantasy and reality. The Oxford Dictionary defines a cynic as “a person who raises doubts about something and a person who believes that people

Dystopias are a special type of genre that give the ability to step into an alternate reality. Though one wouldn’t necessarily want to be forced to be living in a dystopian society, it enlightens the possibilities of what could happen in the future. The tools used to help create a dystopian image are always darker, since it’s generally not a light subject, suspenseful and slow music with deep tones of voice are key to pull together these types of stories. In a book, the gloomy moments are told with heavy and descriptive words with deep meaning in the context. In a movie as the story unfolds, there are changes in lighting, colors, and depth. Within this essay, the works of Ray Bradbury, Veronica Roth, and Louis Lowry will be

Death is probably the most feared word in the English language. Its undesired uncertainty threatens society’s desire to believe that life never ends. Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise tells the bizarre story of how Jack Gladney and his family illustrate the postmodern ideas of religion, death, and popular culture. The theme of death’s influence over the character mentality, consumer lifestyle, and media manipulation is used often throughout DeLillo’s story.

“The world…is crowded, not necessarily with occupants and not at all with memorable experiences, but with happenings; it is a ceaseless flow of seductive trivialities which invoke neither reflection, nor choice but instant participation.” (Oakeshott) The idea of the lacking of realness is one of the major themes carried out throughout the novel White Noise by Don DeLillo, especially through the device of the television.

The consumerism present in White Noise manifests through the constant interjections of branded products’ names throughout the work. For instance, DeLillo presents the necessities of “Waffelos and Kabooms… Dum-Dum pops… [And] Mystic mints” (DeLillo, 1). Meanwhile, synthetically produced foods with destructive effects do not have any uses, whether necessary or practical. Consequently, the products become the ultimate form of commodity, each truly “[A]n object of human wants” (Marx, 19). These desires clearly act detrimentally to the consumer, not only through the unhealthy aspects of such foods, but also as addiction to brands causes the public’s ignorance to the true aspects of the capitalist system, in particular the rise of the corporate

DeLillo's novel is almost obsessively concerned with appliances: TVs, radios, microwaves etc. They are omnipresent, not only in the characters worlds but within the narrative itself. DeLillo repeatedly interrupts his narrative with sentences like "The TV said: And other trends that could dramatically impact our portfolio" (61) or "MasterCard, Visa, American Express" (100) or "That chirping sound was just the radiator" (94). Just as Jack's world is one suffused with such objects, so too is the narrative, a technique which DeLillo uses to force the reader into Jack Gladney's world. Objects play a dualistic role in Jack's familial life. Jack tells us that