An Intuitive Scrutiny of the White Noise - Essay Example

Novel Characters The male protagonist in the novel is Jack Gladney who is founder and a professor of Hitler studies at the educational institution named College-on-the-Hill (Delillo 1-326). The current wife of Jack in the novel is named Babette who is the mother of Denise, Wilder and Eugene (Delillo 1-326). The other principal characters in this novel are Heinrich, the son of Jack and Janet Savory who is a pseudo-philosopher and media fanatic; Denise, the daughter of Babette and Bob Pardee, who frequently exerts the most effort in aiding her mother work out her problems; Steffie or Stephanie Rose, the daughter of Jack and Dana Breedlove; Wilder, the son of Babette and Jack and the youngest of all the children, who barely says anything though he is oftentimes missing; and Murray Jay Siskind, who is a professor fascinated with car crashes and Elvis and frequently seen in the grocery store (Delillo 1-326).

The other characters in the novel namely, Howard Dunlop, the German instructor of Jack; Dana Breedlove, Jack’s first and fourth wife and who works as a part-time spy; Mary Alice, the oldest child of Jack, who is the result of the first marriage of Jack to Dana, she works with whales in Hawaii; Janet Savory, the second wife of Jack who works as a foreign currency analyst and an ashram member; Tweedy Browner, the third wife of Jack and the mother of Bee; Bee, the child of Tweedy and Jack; Willie Minks known also as Mr.

Gray, the Dylar doctor who conducts the affair with Babette; Vernon Dickey, the father of Babette who Jack mistaken as Death one morning; Eric Massingale who is a computer science professor; and Alphonse Stompanato who is a popular culture professor (Delillo 1-326). Novel Plot and Summary The novel is divided into forty chapters and the said chapters are divided into three parts. The first part is labelled Waves and Radiation which consists of Chapters 1-20. The second part is termed as The Airborne Toxic Event which involves Chapter 21.

Finally, the third part is called Dylarama which encompasses Chapters 22-40 (Delillo 1-326). The story commences with the occurrence of an Airborne Toxic event that hits the small college town where Jack Gladney resides. This crisis had led to the evacuation of the Gladneys but eventually later in the story, they were permitted to go back to their home. During the said incident, Jack was exposed to Nyodene D, which is said to be possibly detrimental and fatal; conversely, Simuvac is not contented with the data that they have obtained from the incident and wishes that a simulation is necessary to prepare the town.

On the contrary, Jack’s present wife named Babette has been furtively taking an experimental drug called Dylar, as an exchange she provides sex to the drug inventor named Willie Minks (Delillo 1-326). Eventually, Jack finds out about the affair of his current wife and confronts her; in the end, Jack will also confront Willie and will also shot himself in the process (Delillo 1-326). Novel Scrutiny The novel focuses on death wherein it is shown that the characters fear, obsesses or is fascinated with the concept of death as evidenced by Murray’s line “He looks like a man who find dead bodies erotic” (Delillo 1-326).

Other issues were also tackled in the novel which will be analyzed in this paper. An ethic as defined ecologically by Leopold (214-226) is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. Conversely, Leopold (214-226) also define ethics philosophically as a differentiation of