White Noise: An Umbrella Term for Modernity-Induced Perception of Life and Death - Essay Example

White Noise: An Umbrella Term for Modernity-Induced Perception of Life and Death In Don Delillo’s novel White Noise, the term “white noise” appears as an incorporeal character which exists from the beginning to the end of the novel. Its acoustic existence essentially refers to an array of epistemological connotations referring to the existence of life as well as death, the blurring of diversities and individualities in modern technology-backed society. While the term, in the modern industrial background, refers to a life affected and pervaded by the harmful and toxic effects of technology, it also refers to the central character – Jack’s endeavor to live a fearless life. Though he is afraid of the prospect of death and is meticulous about any possible threats to life, he gradually learns that a life filled with the fear of death is more stifled than death itself. Therefore, “white noise” seems to equate both life and death in the novel. Dellilo, indeed, attempts to refer to the dilemma of modern man: the dilemma is that on the one hand, modern man hankers after individuality; on the other hand, this individuality is coerced by the dins and bustles of modern life. While the cacophony of modern life serves as the background of Jack’s life, it is perceived as a part of life too. Jack ultimately perceives it at the end of the novel. He feels that he himself is a part of the white noise, of the “cacophony, as a stream of sounds, some human, some artificial” (Frow 45). Thus white noise has been endowed with an array of meanings throughout the whole novel. Referring to Dolillo’s concept of white noise, Yurick comments: White noise is a susurration, a fusion of signals and messages, a leveling of sounds into one all-sound – its individual components become indistinguishable. White noise is essentially anti-dramatic. No highs, no lows, no emphases, no diminuendos, all utterances made equal. People who have trouble sleeping – perhaps they want to shut out the screams of the world and their minds – put on earphones that emit a monotonous, soothing sound (Yurick 273). Indeed, the term “white noise” is analogous to human life as a whole or it is a referent to the universe itself. It includes both life and death. Ironically, when Jack struggles to run away from death, he essentially evades life, as John Frow comments in this regard, “the story…shows how J.A.K. Gladney is the ultimate buffoon who lives his life in denial of both life and death” (13). When he speaks of the events in his surroundings, the white noise seems to affect the tone of his narrative. The blurring effects of the white noise also tend to blur the pleasure of living a life. He fails to perceive that though death is “nothing but an awful, endless stream of white noise,” life is also a part of this white noise; he also fails to understand that the white noise itself comprises the activities of life. Therefore, it is the sign of life. Indeed, for Jack, modern man’s busy life is the symbolization of both life and death. While it endows man with the individual choice to be or to exist as he or she likes, it steals away his or her opportunity to be heard amid the chaos. Throughout the whole novel, the narrator’s voice is overpowered and often overwhelmed by a chorus “of background sounds that hum throughout the narrative” (Frow 45). It seems that the narrator represents one who has lost in the crowd and endeavors hard to be heard. Obviously the narrator’s (Jack) struggle to be heard symbolizes modern man’s angst to plunge into oblivion and also to get lost in the crowd. Jack and Babette’s assumption of death as “nothing but an awful, endless stream of white noise” essentially evolves from this angst of modern man. Getting plunged into oblivion and chaos equates to the biological death of a modern man. The continuous data smog on the print and electronic media as well as the chorus of traffic humming, vehicles’ acoustic confusion, etc. seems to steal away Jack and Babette’s ability to perceive the naturalness and normality of their view of life. Whereas normality of a man’s view about life results from his or her close relationship with it, they are deprived of it barred by the facades of modern life. An honorable college professor, Jack maintains these facades strictly throughout the first half of the novel. The facades of modernism are so strong in Jack’s life that he cannot even decide whether to his house or not, as the narrator says, “I'm not just a college professor. I'm the head of a department. I don't see myself fleeing an airborne toxic event. That's for people who live in mobile homes out in the scrubby parts of the country...” (Delillo 117). They decide to abandon the house almost twenty minutes later. It is Jack’s perception of the inevitability of death that prevents from the intoxicated area; rather, it is modernity-induced inertia that prevents him to do so. Indeed, he feels ashamed of the fact that “a college professor…the head of a department” should not flee from “an airborne toxic event” (Delillo 117). Modern life, which is set as the cacophonous background (called white noise) of the novel, incessantly conceals the reality of death from people’s sight by its magnificent and gorgeous features. Indeed, Jack is the production of this white noise in the sense that his perception of life is quite infected with the constructs of modern technology. Jack’s fear of death is generated from his self-deception which is engendered by the procedural approach of modernism to life. He is the Chairman of the Hitler Studies and tries to present Hitler – the man who is the cause of innumerous deaths – as a prominent figure in human history. Indeed, his fear of death is engendered by his failure to accept the truth of Hitler’s notoriety (Delillo 186). He himself feels that he is an intellectual fraud who builds up a reputable career on a lie about the prominence of Hitler as an eminent character of the human civilization. In fact, through his lifestyle he goes on to deceive himself. He wears a distinguishable robe at his college. This gorgeous lifestyle that he builds around the reputation of Hitler compels him to deny the truth about Hitler’s notoriety and also the reality of death. This suppressed truth of horror finds in its own way convulsively through the event of the chemical intoxication. Modern ideas, thoughts, views, technology-induced cacophony, messages, signal, media reports, information, etc. tend to overshadow Jack’s natural perception of life. In contrast with Jack’s artificial view of life and death, white noise does not seem to affect Heinrich. In utter contrast with Jack’s view of death, Heinrich takes death as it is. He views death from an analytical and dispassionate point of view. As death is unavoidable, one’s attempt to take it as it is can lessen the anxiety and terror that are often related with it. Now Winnie Richard’s approach asserts that the unavoidability and the terror of death can be one’s sole inspiration to add texture to life. If death is meant to be the sudden ending of everything in human life, death can fill human life with complete meaninglessness. Yet this unavoidable and unexpected end can endow human life with something meaningful and with the hope to go further if death is accepted in its purest form. But Richards’s approach is completely in contrast with Jack and Babette’s point of view. Rather accepting the concept of death in its purest form, they are terrorized with its unavoidability. They say that they will do anything and give everything they have in order to escape death. Jack researches Hitler’s importance as a historical figure. Also, he receives fame and prominence as usual. Though he has researched the death and terror Hitler brought about in human history, he has failed to internalize the naturalness of life and death. Indeed, his view is barred by the white noise, a symbolization of the media and machine-obsessed modern life. Having a life that is busy with planning and procedural achievements and full of “a susurration, a fusion of signals and messages, a leveling of sounds into one all-sound – its individual components become indistinguishable,” a modern man is allowed with little scope to meander through the natural surface of life, which embraces both laughter and tears, life and death, etc (Yurick 273). He or she perpetually lives in “auditory entropy” in which he or she struggles hard to raise their own individual voice. Jack’s ignorance about what death really looks like is the result of his lack of contact with the stern and ultimate reality of death. In modern society, since he is only familiar with the white noise or the “death of distinction and distinguishability,” he equates death with it (Yurick 273). But such assumption can do no good to his terror about the inevitability of death. Rather, he overcomes the fear of death through his true commitment to life. In the hospital bed, he perceives life and death with their real essences; his perception comes in the form of belief. He gains an unperturbed view of life and says, From my chair I had a clear view of the picture of Kennedy and the Pope in heaven. I had a sneaking admiration for the picture. It made me feel good, sentimentally refreshed. The President still vigorous after death….Why shouldn't it be true?" (Dellilo 317) Works Cited DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Print. Frow, John. “The Last Things before the Last: Notes on White Noise.” White Noise: Text and Criticism. Penguins, 1998. Print. Yurick, Sol. “Fleeing Death in a World of Hyper-Babble.” White Noise: Text and Criticism. Penguins, 1998. Print. Read More