Perception of the World and False Images from White Noise
Don DeLillo's award-winning novel White Noise takes the idea of the supremacy of false images to the extreme. Through various scenarios, such as the airborne toxic event and the Dylar dilemma, DeLillo critiques contemporary society's over-dependence on false images. The characters in the novel that exemplify this over-dependence appear humorous on one hand, yet tragic on the other. The humor comes from the novel's characters behaving like cartoon characters who continually get hurt, but keep coming back for more. The novel's characters keep getting hurt by false images, yet continue to believe in them, causing the reader to smack his or her head in astonishment. This also makes the characters tragic, however, since the reader cannot help feeling pity for them in their inability to find the truth.
The book introduces the reader immediately to false images through the main character, Jack Gladney. He suggests that "there was an honesty inherent in bulkiness if it is just the right amount (7). People trust a certain amount of bulk in others." He mistakes a person's bulky image for a sign of that person's honesty. I have to wonder what will happen to that image if a bulky person violates Jack's trust. Perhaps an indication can be found when Murray tells Jack that a colleague of Murray's, Cotsakis, was lost in the surf off Malibu (169). Cotsakis weighed three hundred pounds. While not an actual violation of trust, this event causes Jack to pause for a minute. Perhaps Cotsakis' death, despite his bulk, gives Jack the impression that bulk is not a proper image to maintain since it does not prevent death.
While the false image of bulk is ...
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...The images of them point back to an original sunset. Still, though, I do not believe it will be enough to counteract the years of dependence on false images. DeLillo merely sets the problem on the table; he does not offer a solution. The airborne toxic event does not force people to see the problems associated with false images and instead strive for genuine images. The reader is meant to learn from the events of the novel what the characters could not realize - false images cause all sorts of problems for those who project them and for those who receive them. The characters, meanwhile, will continue to set up barriers between themselves and others and rely on the images fed to them by the media and other forms of technology. They will probably also turn the Nyodyne D sunsets into the most photographed sunsets in America, thus destroying yet another genuine image.
Rankin, Paul. Hemmingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Explicator. 63.4 (Summer 2005): 234-237. Rpt. In Short Story Critisism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale, 234-237. Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. . 12 Jan. 2015.
Christa Kurkjian explains in her paper, Is “Fat” the New “F” Word?, that Carver transforms the social norm of being fat—and ugly—to something of a “saving grace” (Kurkjian 3). However, I have to disagree with Kurkjian on her thesis. I truly do not feel Carver’s intent for Fat is to transform the word “fat,” but to elaborate on how people perceive fat.
The article I read was “Weight Loss at Any Cost” by James Sanborn. Sanborn’s intended audience was the Marine Corps Times where he published the article in October 2010. He wanted to reach the Marine Corps and Marines as his intended audience. Stanborn used the Corps own words against them quoting them saying “Marines come in all shapes and sizes.” This statement is powerful and has an impact; making the Corps look hypocritical because of the tightened standards which ultimately want Marines to be the same size and shape. Despite how physically capable a Marine is if they don’t meet the standards they risk losing their career. In the past there was leniency shown to Marines who didn’t have the body-fat standards
When Jack thought that his past actions defined him he tried to leave Libby. Their relationship had only been getting stronger and he simply turned his head from her at one point, “If you walk away [Jack] don’t come back. You don’t get to do that and come back” (175). Even though Libby said she wouldn’t let him back into her life she still did, because she knew love had a grip on her heart and that it meant much more to her than holding a grudge. As time progresses Jack is still insecure about his and Libby’s relationship and can’t imagine that she actually cares about him, “You deserve to be seen” (225). Jack says this to Libby because he doesn’t want her weight to define her. He believes that her personality should be what people remember her for. Not her weight. Jack is worried that he can’t provide the security, love, and trust that most people, including Libby desire. He learns though that not only do your looks not define you, neither does your
In the story “Popular Mechanics” the author, Raymond Carver, demonstrates how the feelings and actions of the characters set the plot and the conflict. The author shows how the feelings and actions led to the conflict and tragedy at the end by positioning words in a way to demonstrate the dark and eerie plot. The author manipulates words to exhibit the feelings of the mother and the father. Carver maneuvers how each of the character’s actions also contribute to the conflict at the end. The actions and feelings of each character play an important part of the plot.
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” tells the tale of a man and a woman, who at first might seem to be having a normal and rather dull conversation at a train station, but it is only when you look closer into what is actually being said by the characters and find the small clues that Hemingway cleverly knit into the story, that you realize how heavy the conversation actually is. Unlike many authors, Hemingway leaves it to the reader to delve deeper into the story and decipher the situation for themselves, and a seemingly simple story can become something so much more. The woman in the story is contemplating whether to stick to the life she knows or begin a brand new chapter in her life that could change her relationship with the man forever. Sometimes one’s true intentions are not always clear.
The Latin saying, mutatis mutandi, translates into "everything affects everything else," and this especially applies to the characterization used in Ernest Hemingway’s "Hills Like White Elephants." Through close examination, it is evident that the character of Jig is revealed not only through her own actions, but also through the contrasting descriptions of her surrounding environment and her subtle mannerisms. By strategically scattering these faint clues to Jig’s persona though out the story, Hemingway forces the reader to overcome common stereotypes and examine ambiguous dialogue before being able to discover the round, dynamic character that is Jig.
By coding his novel, White Noise, as if it were a television show, DeLillo comments on the state of affairs in our modern culture. DeLillo demonstrates our society's codependency on what was originally only intended to be a medium of communication. By showing the benevolence of the medium as it translates into the lives of his characters, DeLillo is saying that maybe our dependence on television, even as blood bath entertainment is not as bad as generally perceived.
Fats is Andrew Price’s best friend for most of the novel; however, Fats betrays Andrew by making out with his crush Gaia. Fats lack of empathy towards his friend is rooted in his attempts to be authentic. Towards the beginning of the novel Fats explains what he believes authentic nature entails. In The Casual Vacancy during Fats’ explanation of what it means being true to oneself it states, “The difficult thing, the glorious thing, was to be who you really were, even if that person was cruel or dangerous, particularly if cruel and dangerous. There was courage in not disguising the animal you happened to be. On the other hand, you had to avoid pretending to be more of an animal than you were: take that path, start exaggerating or faking and you become another Cubby, just as much of a liar, a hypocrite” (75). Fats adopts a philosophy to avoid becoming what he feels is inauthentic, to act against one’s own desires. Fats believes he has an understanding of what it means to be authentic; however, he does not seem to see the bigger picture. Fats rules out the rest of the world in his philosophy and his actions seem to be an act of senseless rebellion towards his parents and what is expected of him. There isn’t much harm in being inauthentic, not to the point where one needs to meticulously judge one’s every action, to find the root of their intentions. Fats rebellion seems to stem from his feeling of not fitting into his family. This type of thinking leads Fats to disregard his friend Andrew’s feeling when he chooses to make out with Gaia which ends their friendship. Fats also is so caught up in his own desires he is partly responsible for Robbie’s death. Fat’s obsession with getting “laid” leads to the toddler’s death. Throughout most of
The power within the mind provides people with the opportunity to create an illusion of one’s life. These illusions sprout from dreams that often are unobtainable, as they strive to reach perfection in life which is known to be impossible. The mind crafted images provide people with an outlet to escape the terrifying truth of reality. Shielding oneself from reality is only a temporary solution, and can create social struggles as well as tension. The struggle between wanting to live in a fantasy of dreams to escape the world, and accepting the hardships of reality has existed in society since the beginning of time. Tennessee Williams demonstrates that many fall into the temptation to escape reality by living in an imagination where truth and responsibilities are neglected in his novel The Glass Menagerie.
Abercrombie states that the human brain plays an active role in shaping the information presented to us, based on one’s past experiences. Kahneman claims that the human mind uses two systems of thinking, System 1 and System 2, where System 2 is more active and effortful than System 1. I attempt to illustrate how Abercrombie and Kahneman's ideal concepts of the perception of reality are applicable to real situations, by referring to the following three readings: Jung’s “The Personal and the Collective Unconscious,” Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” and Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The three readings relate to Abercrombie and Kahneman, considering the overlapping concepts of reality, that words and metaphors structure our understanding of what is real, reality can be altered from different perspectives, and that ignorance can actually be bliss.
Most fondly is the TV series Perception. Dr. Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack), a neuroscientist, professor, and FBI consultant, is also, schizophrenic. Though delusional most often, he is a crime solving magnate, who rarely takes his medication, and often prefers hallucinations that help him solve the most complex criminal cases (Personal Knowledge). His best friends, Max Lewicki (Arjay Smith), his live-in companion and teaching assistant who understands his disorder and helps Dr. Pierce maintain a healthy diet, and work though his battles with reality vs. hallucinations. Kate (Rachael Leigh Cook) a former student turned FBI, who Dr. Pierce assists with criminal cases; and close friend and form roommate Paul Haley (LeVar Burton) turned Dean at
One can analyze the story of “Hills Like White Elephants,” in the form of the structuralist perspective by using the system of binary oppositions. Robert DiYanni states in the text “Literature Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama,” that “Structuralist critics find all kinds of opposition in literature, from small scale elements, such as letters and syllables; through symbols, such as light and dark; to motions or directions (up and down)... places (inside and outside)... to elements of plot and character , such as changes of feeling and reversals of fortune” (1583). In addition, Isaiah Smithson’s definition of structuralist criticism supports Robert DiYanni’s statement. He defines it as “A method of analyzing phenomena, as in anthropology, linguistic, psychology, or literature, chiefly characterized by contrasting the elemental structures of the phenomena in a system of binary oppositions” (Smithson 145). Also, one can use Richard Webster’s definiti...
Tannenbaum’s theory of tagging and the dramatization of evil seems to be particularly relevant to being fat. Tannenbaum theorizes that society tags specific acts as deviant, and if a person commits that act, they themselves become evil in the eyes of society (Bereska, 2014). As related to weight, the initial deviant act would be overeating or inactivity. Though many fat people maintain healthy lifestyles, it is often assumed that the engaged in that initial act of deviance, even if someone did not personally witness it. From that assumption comes the dramatization of evil – that person becomes nothing but fat, which in my experience, is often associated with a lack of self control and emotional issues. By some, fatness is viewed as an evil, contagious disease that is spread by associating with an overweight person. The other labelling theory that fits well with discussions of being overweight is Howard Becker’s concept of master status. Essentially, Becker theorizes that when someone has a deviant label prescribed to them, it becomes their whole identity to those on the outside (Bereska, 2014). When someone is given the label of “fat” or “obese”, it becomes the only thing people can see. I find that in my own personal interactions, I have to prove that I am more than a fat woman to be take seriously, and give everything of myself to be treated as an actual
By being made to empathize with the supposed outsiders of society, such as Cholly Breedlove, the reader challenges the assumption that readers of American fiction only think from a white perspective. The novel, if read closely, shifts the trend of the white audience by making the reader aware of the inner workings of a racialized imagination and the consequences of not questioning such a mechanism. This awareness causes the reader to start to question the consequences of a racialized imagination in other