White Noise and Movie, Revolutionary Road(dir. Sam Mendes)2008 - Essay Example

Each of these themes is used to create a question of the family life and the identity that is a part of this. More specifically, both authors show that the illusions that are a part of white suburbia create problems and complications of living life, specifically because of the desire to reach the American dream. One of the main focuses of both the novel and movie that are presented is the idea of family life. However, each of these presents an illusion of what it means to life in a middle class, white family as a part of suburbia.

In both works, there is an ideal that the family life and suburbia is able to create a picture perfect representation of the American dream. For instance, at the beginning of White Noise, the author states “The well – made faces and wry looks. They feel a sense of renewal, of communal recognition. The women crisp and alert, in diet trim, knowing people’s names. Their husbands content to measure out the time, distant but ungrudging, accomplished in parenthood, something about them suggesting massive insurance coverage” (DeLillo, 3).

This opening statement is a presentation of the American white family that lives in suburbia and keeps up a specific impression about family life. In this statement, the author creates an understanding of the identity of suburbia, consumerism that is at the center of the family and the representation of family life. While this particular ideal is set in both the movie and the book, there is also a question of the truth of this identity. The American dream that is pictured in both the book and the movie becomes problematic when the family life is led to illusions that have an undertone of problems.

In White Noise this is presented by the husband, Jack, who has been married five times with several children. The main problem arises when the illusion of suburbia and the American dream can no longer present real life.