The Role Of Jack's Fear Of Death In White Noise

In the novel White Noise, the protagonist Jack Gladney copes with his fear of death very often, and frequently through power. The power Jack seeks is not completely obvious to his friends and family or in his personality, but revolves more around power over his own death and his fear of it. Jack finds the idea of being remembered after death takes away from you actually dying, and believed that this is what Hitler did. Delillos use of Jack's first person point of view also helps to understand and analyse how Jack is truly feeling in many situations. Jack uses power as a tactic to distance himself and forget his fear of death. He gains this power by leading himself to create a ‘stronger’ persona for himself, creating negative relationships with family, being violent, and through consumerism. Jacks profession, and Hitler in general, makes him feel powerful and pushes him to become more powerful. Teaching about such a powerful person guides him to try and present himself as a powerful man, too. He wears a black cape, dark glasses, and is even encouraged to change his name and body by the chancellor: “...the chancellor advised me…to do something about my name and

Jack visits the mall with his family and becomes entranced by the activity, “The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums… I felt expansive, inclined to be sweepingly generous” (84). Through his purchases, he was able to feel powerful from the fact that he was able to control everything he bought, for himself and his family. Buying things for his family also helped him feel like the leader, and again, more authoritative. He is able to forget about his fear for a little, and even feel like he is distant from it because he has so much power. Jack does not openly express how these daily activities make him feel, so his point of view is beneficial in seeing what he is thinking and