DeLillo projects Jack Gladney’s reality rather seamlessly. DeLillo thoughtfully curates the small college town aesthetic through details such as “the time of the spiders” and the modest, suburban, supermarket that you would likely find in a town like Blacksmith. DeLillo engulfs the reader in Jacks day to day functions through the juxtaposition between professional and family life. We see that Jacks duties and interactions at the College-on-the-HIll are not isolated to his personal life. Just as real people do, he uses his personal time to further his professional skills by learning german, and he keeps communication with his coworker, Murray Siskind. As far as the Gladney household, DeLillo masterfully epitomizes the hectic family dynamic through …show more content…
Perhaps the text proves more rich to an older audience, but to incoming freshmen, this novel falls short in inventive thought. The recurring obsession with death’s inevitability present throughout the text just doesn’t wholly connect to young adults. Jack’s declaration in his lecture that, “‘All plots tend to move deathward’,” raises cause for contemplation (26). While this concept spurs reflection, it still lacks effective connectivity to our age group. Looming death occupies our concerns very little. Interestingly, the book raises topics relevant to that day that remain relevant today. DeLillo writes, “Society is set up in such a way that it’s the poor and the uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters,” (114). This passage still applies in the current day. Now called Environmental Racism, this hot topic greatly affects large populations today. Another stimulating piece of the text reads, “The infant’s brain develops in response to stimuli,” (189). This idea, in relation to consumerism opens the brain to hypothesizing about human development and its many influences. If consumerism affected society in the time of this novel, it’s effect is outstanding today. White Noise definitely contains some inventive content, just not very powerful concepts. The most prominent, thought provoking passages are those that remain relevant through the decades to all