White Noise portrays Jack’s struggle with death in the postmodern society of simulacra and hyperreal, where most things are simulated except for death. Despite the numerous attempts, death eludes modern simulation because according to science, it is simply the end of everything. Nothing gets more real than death and our fear of it, and death is the line between the real and the hyperreal. When Jack gets in touch with his own death, he is crushed because he finds himself trapped inside the real while all he had known about and lived in was the hyperreal. He tries to escape the real by killing Mink, but just as he finds his way into the hyperreal, he is launched back by Mink’s shot. After failing the escape, Jack finds comfort instead inside …show more content…
Even though afterlife is a form of death simulation, the society of White Noise rejects that because it’s not scientific. The tabloid writes about stories of afterlives in a speculative manner, which serves to entertain the readers as science fictions. The hospital Sister Hermann Marie works in is essentially Baudrillard’s Disneyland. It preserves the fantasy of an afterlife in order to affirm the rest of the world as real. As Marie says, “We are your lunatics… There is no truth without fools” (Delillo 304). Real death remains in the real, while the simulation of death is the “uniform, white” noise that alienates us from it and creates “an eerie separation between your condition and yourself” (Delillo 189, 137). The simulacra hides the truth of death temporarily, but it ultimately makes things worse as people, such as Jack, are less than prepared to face the real death when it comes, which it will eventually. The modern death is in fact a waste product, a leftover from the simulation. The society hides the real death away just like trash, both of which Jack finds dreadful. However, people are forced to reckon with death at times of crisis: when the plane is about to crash, the pilot says, “They didn't prepare us for this at the death simulator in Denver. Our fear is pure” (Delillo 90). The fear of death is primal. Jack is also “scared to the marrow” when he thinks Death …show more content…
After the airborne toxic event, Jack realizes that he has got death inside him. He is so accustomed to living in the hyperreal, like everyone else, that he cannot stand being trapped in the real by his fear of death. Murray suggests to Jack that becoming a killer might help alleviate his fear. He says killing is “a way of controlling death. A way of gaining the ultimate upper hand” (Delillo 277). The killer gets to live with more life credits in the hyperreal, along with all the other victors throughout history, at least in theory. Jack then decides to try it out on Mink. As he carries out the plan and enters the motel, he says, “I was part of a network of structures and channels. I knew the precise nature of events. I was moving closer to things in their actual state as I approached a violence, a smashing intensity” (Delillo 291). Not only is the content of the plot, Jack committing murder, insane and unreal, the tone of the writing also becomes heightened with “a smashing intensity” as Jack approaches the hyperreal and senses the simulacra, the “network of structures”, all around him. However, his journey comes to a sudden end when Mink shoots him in the wrist, when “[t]he world collapsed inward, all those vivid textures and connections buried in mounds of ordinary stuff” (Delillo 298). At that dramatic instance of chaos, disappointment, pain, and death, Jack loses sight of the hyperreal
All humans have their sufferings and Jack is no expectation. He has problems with drinking, depression and denial. Once Ian realized this, he reassured him and tried to ease him away from the pain. This is shown in the book when Ian stated to Jack “It’s just that I think you should stop drinking” (...
Death and Reality in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
In a society where the life is easy and no hardships exist it is inconceivable to the public to think that anyone would want anything else. No one is poor, no one is lonely. When times get rough, or doubt settles it, citizens just medicate with soma and feel no strong emotions. In their drug induced state they drift back into a sense that everything is perfect, without soma, citizens have no way to handle inconveniences of life. For instance, when Lenina visits the reservations with Bernard she desperately feels “in her pocket for her soma—only to discover that, by some unprecedented oversight, she had left the bottle down the rest house” (Huxley 111). She needs her soma, she cannot cope with regular events without it. The people in the society, whether Epsilon or Alpha, have every comfort they could dream of, never getting ill, never aging, never having to deal with any heartache. In order to not experience strong emotion people cannot get too attached to each other, tying into the idea that everyone belongs to everyone. When citizens have this mentality the concept of death is simply a passing event, it holds no true importance. When Lenina and Henry are flying above the crematorium, a puff of air, once a life, makes the helicopter shoot up for a moment. Instead of seeing this as a sentimental ending of a life, Lenina simply claps her hands and remarks on how enjoyable flying up was. Her ignorance displays how the way people live their lives in the World State affects how they perceive death. The World State is filled with essentially clones; no one is truly a free thinker, which is why Huxley writes in John. John is the purest form of individual that is present in Brave New World. John Savage is viewed by the society as this sort of animal, untamed and different.
Jack, who has a high position in the college, often worries that he will be established as lacking or incompetent of how he teaches and lives and will die insignificant. He has this aura around him in which he feels like he is not good enough and when he dies there will be no reasons of his remembering. Therefore, he surrounds himself with things that make him look weighty and dignified by association. For example, around campus he wears black spectacles and dramatic robes by which he is recognizable. Jack was influenced by Adolf Hitler, the most recognizable man and who over Jack created the department in the college. The more distinguishable he becomes, as he believes, the more remembered he will be after death. As well as death, the media in the novel plays a big part in this aspect. The media bases itself around strong and popular people. The media tries to convert others into perfection by displaying the perfect people on the screens. This affects Jack, and triggers his tendency to become more than he is and dignified by
certain way. Jack wants to be the one afraid of death and at the same time wants
The deaths and dangers in the world we face are sometimes made of ourselves and of our fears. In the dark story The Masque of the Red Death the danger being unavoidable death that Prince Prospero shuns away but comes back to kill him. In Young Goodman Brown, the protagonist fears that his faith will be loss and nothing will be good in the world anymore. Both these stories are’ descriptive and use many symbols that connect to fear. While the protagonists in Young Goodman Brown and The Masque of the Red Death are both fearful, Goodman Brown fears of losing his innocence and runs off to find faith but loses it on the way, and the prince in The Masque of Red Death fears losing his riches.
In the essay “On the Fear of Death” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross focuses on dying and the effects it has on children as well as those who are dying, while in Jessica Mitford’s “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” focuses more on the after fact when the deceased is being prepared of their last appearance. Both authors, point out that the current attitude toward death is to simply cover it up. A successful funeral is when the deceased looks “Lyf Lyk” in Mitford’s Essay, but in Kubler-Ross’ it is dying at a peace with oneself, no IVs attached. Both authors feel that the current views of death is dehumanizing. Mitford points this out with the allusion that the funeral parlors are a theatrical play, while Kubler-Ross comments “I think there are many reasons
... of calls to communicate. He has complete power over the tribe, bending them to his will. He’s become a dictator, savage and brutal. Rules no longer apply to Jack because he’s forgotten the society he comes from. All he cares about now is killing Ralph to take revenge. In his mind, killing is a totally acceptable thing to do. Jack has lost all reason. His plan to kill Jack fails though, when an unexpected rescuer shows up. It is unknown if Jack ever regains his civilized self. It seems unlikely though, given how he is at this point.
What is white noise? The definition is a noise containing many frequencies. White noise is connected with technology, which is one of the themes in the novel as well. It consist of the background noises that follows throughout the narrative. Although it’s not the same humming every time it is still a constant noise in the novel. The main characters speculate that maybe death is just an annoying, endless stream of white noise. Just as death is an everyday conversation, white noise just becomes as frequent. Being associated with death, but also with life.
At the end of the story, Jack realizes that blending in with society is not ideal. He regrets the past decade that was full of loss and regret when it could've been full of trust and love. People may be tempted to make unwise decisions to blend in with society. But think about it: the world is like a crowded marketplace. If you don’t stand out, you are invisible. Unique qualities define your identity. Without them, you are not yourself. At least on Qingming, the mother’s poor spirit can rest easy, knowing her son is with her in heart, but that can never make up for the years of hurt and betrayal directed at
...learn a more cohesive and smooth running representation of his self, and to make Jack less vulnerable to his overwhelming narcissistic tendencies. Though these techniques would work I would imagine that Jack would never go seeking help because he would never see anything he does as wrong or out of the ordinary.
In the midst of many themes, one of the things Don DeLillo seems completely preoccupied with is the constant reminder of death in his novel "White Noise". The inability to accept one's finite existence in a vast, incomprehensible universe is unquestionably an experience familiar to countless individuals. However, rather than discussing in broad strokes the inescapable mortality that ties together all of mankind, in a passage describing an exchange between Jack Gladney and a SIMUVAC technician, DeLillo criticizes the technology-filled world of the late twentieth century defined by reliance on masses of humming machines and faith in the incessant stream of media sounds and images. Technology, he avows, has fostered a material culture of consumption
In the play “everyman” death is depicted as something that is terribly feared as no one seemed ready for it, death is perceived as something that takes one away from the pleasures of this world.
Intro : Introduce the concept of death, and how the concept of death is shown to be something to be feared
Jack, creates his own “dark double”, his supposed carefree, immoral, and decadent brother, Ernest. It is