Zombie Consumerism in "White Noise"
analytical Essay
602 words
When humankind turns directionless and destination less, when confusion confounds the society, when people act and react as if they are in world created out of hallucinations, when muddle-headed thinking becomes the accepted reasoning of lifestyles, take it for granted that they are the best candidates for and the ardent supporters of zombie consumerism. Phillip Mahoney in article Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Zombie: From Suggestion to Contagion in the book Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture (2011) writes “What is important is that, for now “zombie” effectively operates as an “empty signifier,” capable of calling into existence an active, global front dividing those who respond to the call—in “whatever” fashion—and those who do not”(p.126). This is a situation of fiasco and confrontation, created out of the gifts of the materialistic civilization, the mad race for aggrandizement for wealth and heading towards the purposeless goal of more and more purchases, whether an individual genuinely needs those commodities or not!
The subject matter (plot) of White Noise and the issues dealt with under the nomenclature of Zombie consumerism are more or less identical, just like the alternative beats of the same heart. Zombie Consumerism is an all-embracing concept and it can be part of any field of activity. When an individual buys goods just for the sake of shopping, without any rhyme or reason, without the genuine want, he becomes part of the zombie consumerism. Zombies do not belong to the world of imagination alone. They represent something culturally current. It can be anything, social unrest, social awakening, weird movies, science fiction, and they hold the mirror to show the pictur...
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...ash, chemical spill and the advancing, life-threatening black cloud, simulated evacuation, drug dealings, dangerous side effects of the drugs, killings and sex, rampart consumerism, underground conspiracies and human-made disasters etc. Such topics represent the concept of zombie culture.
Works Cited
: From Suggestion to Contagion in the book Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture (2011) writes “What is important is that, for now “zombie” effectively operates as an “empty signifier,” in “whatever” fashion—and those who do not”(p.126).
Boluk, Stephanie (Ed.) Lenz, Wylie (Ed.) (2011) Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture. McFarland & Co Inc.; New York; English
DeLillo, Don. White Noise (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Accessed on March 29, 2014
In this essay, the author
- Opines that zombie consumerism is a situation of fiasco and confrontation, created out of the gifts of materialistic civilization, the mad race for aggrandizement for wealth and heading towards the purposeless goal of more and more purchases.
- Analyzes the subject matter of white noise and the issues dealt with under the nomenclature of zombie consumerism. consumerism is an all-embracing concept and it can be part of any field of activity.
- Explains that zombie consumerism is the main action stage for consumptive hunger of the unthinking zombie. consumerism is like the marathon race, where thousands run merely for the sake of participation.
- Analyzes how don delillo's eighth novel, white noise, highlights the zombie culture. the hero of the novel marries five times to four women and his sole purpose is to breed children.
- Opines that "zombie" effectively operates as an "empty signifier" in "whatever" fashion, and those who do not.
Related
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In this essay, the author
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In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how brooks perceives a satirical social commentary on consumerism through mary jo miller, an upper-class wife and mother of two children residing in troy, montana.
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In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how the choir kids staged an impressive full-costume and make-up performance of michael jackson’s “thriller” mashed up with the yeah yeahs’ “heads will roll.” the episode aired in february, so no halloween connection makes sense.
- Analyzes how the february sweeps episode centered on several reversals and upheavals in the status of the main characters. the football players, who spent the first one and half seasons tormenting the glee club, are forced to join them in a performance.
- Explains that zombies have become a popular end-of-the-world scenario in modern literature and entertainment, beginning with george romero’s night of the living dead in 1968.
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- Analyzes how the zombie apocalypse in the sumerian epic taps into our fears about the permanence of our social structures.
- Compares the norse draugr, the malay pontianak, and the apocalyptic zombie horde.
- Narrates how a certain man died and was laid in the tomb on the eve of the lord's ascension. the following night, he terrified his wife and nearly crushed her.
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- Analyzes how white zombie spawned many imitators, each of which played on the cultural and racial subtexts of voodoo and slavery.
- Analyzes how romero and russo created the zombie movie genre, which continues to proliferate throughout film and fiction.
- Analyzes how john russo, in his double novel undead, retells the plot of night of the living dead as a novella and follows it with his original concept for the sequel.
- Analyzes how the first novella provides a narrative version of the plot of romero’s movie.
- Narrates the second novella of undead, called return of the living dead, which follows sheriff mcclelland, who played only a minor role in the first story.
- Analyzes how russo captures the core of zombie literature: that the real monsters are the living, not the undead.
- Analyzes how the ghoul knelt over the unconscious girl, its dead lips drooling spittle, and its rough hands moved down and pulled her blouse off her body in one brutal motion.
- Analyzes how russo's use of zombies as a reflection of human frailty and evil echoes flack’s undepicted rape of the miller girl.
- Analyzes how russo's work focuses on the impotence of ities we trust with our lives. even the carry-over character, sheriff mcclellan, appears inept.
- Analyzes how dawn of the dead continues the story and furthers the themes russo establishes.
- Narrates how roger and peter escape philadelphia with francine and stephen. they kill the mall's zombie population and block the large glass doors with trucks to keep the undead from entering.
- Analyzes how dawn of the dead expands on many concepts introduced in undead. the swat raid insists that our superstitions are dangerous, and that those in power often abuse their positions.
- Analyzes how undead keeps its conflicts local and personal — ben is black and harry is white, but the racial politics extant in 1968 appear nowhere in the novel. dawn makes big political and moral leaps.
- Explains that they're after the place. they don't know why, they just remember.
- Narrates how their granddaddy used to tell them about macumba, voodoo, and the dead walking the earth when there's no more room in hell.
- Analyzes how romero criticizes our rampant consumerism and connects it to cosmic punishment. the zombie plague is a punishment for our moral failures, both large and small.
3232 wordsRead More