Don DeLillo's White Noise novel and Malcolm Gladwell's Big and Bad article

Don DeLillo’s novel, White Noise revolves around the life of Jack, a Hitler Studies scholar at College-on-the-Hill. The characters within the novel all want to involve themselves with the events in an industrial American society. Jack and his fourth spouse, Babette are characterized by their love, fear of loss of life, and four seemingly civilized children. The family seeks to live in a society where the consumerism culture is highly influenced by media and companies. The characters’ consumerism culture becomes influenced by the dangers of the industrial chemical cloud that hangs over their lives. This essay explores the importance of honesty in the wake of a consumerism culture that is highly influenced by the media and companies as evident in White Noise by DeLillo and “Big and Bad” by Malcolm Gladwell.

In Gladwell’s “Big and Bad” article, he discusses company and media influences on consumers’ choices of safe cars (Gladwell 440). Gladwell depicts the two key organizations as being dishonest in their unfair influences on consumers’ choice to buying big cars; however, this turns out to be passively safe as opposed to being actively safe. The author provides facts about the 33 brands of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and minivans, with the less preferred, midsize cars such as the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Volkswagen Jetta taking the lead on safety. Gladwell argues company information and media influences have turned very safe cars into unsafe ones because drivers tend to be passive rather than active when driving (Gladwell 440). The story closely resembles White Noise in the sense that in both cases, the consumerism culture subject to media and company influences, rather than the objectivity of the customers.

Jack’s life re...

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...y the media.

Generally, DeLillo creates uncertainty in the life events surrounding various characters in the White Noise. The author has dedicated the novel’s plotline to important events, random conversations, and bits of sounds of machines and the media to create a sense of a new life and era. Throughout White Noise and “Big and Bad,” readers are shown the massive role of the media and companies in influencing consumerism cultural influences. Media and companies are depicted as blocking consumer objectivity in life and with the massive risks upon the end-users; honesty is the best policy that would guarantee consumers consistency and safety.

Works Cited

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Viking, 1985.

Malcolm Gladwell. "Big and Bad." Open Questions. Eds. Chris Anderson and Lex

Runciman. New York: Bedford, 2005. 36-41. Print. Web. 11 May 2014.