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`` White Noise `` By Jack Gladney

Decent Essays

Jack Gladney teaches death, destruction, and devastation, he surrounds himself by the legacy of chaos perpetuated by Hitler. Death did not stop Hitler, he continued to live on by securing his place in history. Jack struggles to secure his own place in history, rather he attaches himself to the important figure. The ever present fear of death affects Jack and his family are differently, causing them to find their own ways of dealing with it. While some are encouraged to pursue outrageous feats, others attempt to cure themselves of the fear, and some try to defeat death itself. Throughout the novel, White Noise, Jack is forced to look past the distractions of daily life and face the looming fear of death that plagues his thoughts, and he learns how that fear prevails even in the modern world.

Despite death, many powerful and popular individuals continue to live on. One individual, Hitler, used his persona to gain political power which spawned a myth, that grew larger than life and larger than death. Jack learns, studies, and lives through Hitler, through his appraisal of Hitler, Jack realizes the insignificance of his own death. His attachment to Hitler helps Jack ward off the overwhelming fear and anxiety about being forgotten after his own death. In a discussion about Hitler and Elvis, Murray notes, "Elvis fulfilled the terms of the contract. Excess, deterioration, self-destructiveness, grotesque behavior, a physical bloating and a series of insults to the brain,

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