The Infiltration of Popular Culture in DeLillos White Noise Essay

The Infiltration of democratic Culture in DeLillos White Noise In Don DeLillos satirical novel White Noise, we become acquainted with what we might call a postmodern family - a group of people loosely bound unneurotic by birth, marriage, and common residence. But as we observe this family, we notice that the bonds between them are strained at best, and that their lives have been taken over by some insidious new force. This force is popular finishing. For better or worse, pop culture has infiltrated the lives of our fictional family just as it has the lives of real human race beings. DeLillos purpose in the book is best illuminated by Heinrichs commentary after the airborne toxic termination The real issue is the bod of radiation that surrounds us every day. In other words, DeLillo states that popular culture is ruining - or, perhaps, has ruined - us all. We must first unpack what DeLillo, discourse through Heinrich, means by this statement. First, we notice that culture of so me correct is important to a nines well-being - in fact, some would argue that a group of people does not form a civilized society unless they have culture. Now, high culture - the culture espoused by the ruling classes, such as theater, classical music, and the like - is usually delivered live. No radiation is required. In contrast, low or popular culture is generally transmitted by radiation - the television or the radio receiver. Steffies Toyota Celica episode (154-155) is an example of this, as are the symptoms of the airborne toxic event that continually change in concord with the radio. Furthermore, the fear of death figures prominently in the novel, and this is parallel to the fixing with youth. more have blamed the American obsession with youth (e... ...ized by an obsession with the messages delivered by the radio. All the characters change the name that they use to refer to the event when the radio announcer does - a feathery plume (111), a billowing besmirch (114), and finally an airborne toxic event (117). But this is just now nomenclature. more telling is the fact that the girls symptoms - actual objects with physical manifestations - constantly change with the radio reports. We learn that Heinrich told her Denise she was showing outdated symptoms (117). How can symptoms be outdated? The only solution is that we really have become media lemmings, ruled by the mite of beings who exist only in radiation rather than by our hold selves. We have become slaves of the media, as DeLillo so vividly illustrates - and we should be terrified. work CitedDeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York Penguin, 1985.