'White Noise' by Don DeLillo

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews the novel 'White Noise' by don DeLillo. The paper discusses death as a theme prevalent in the book and in the life of the main character, Jack. The main question the paper is asks is whether Jack himself is a "killer" or not when it comes to the subject of death.

From the Paper:

"'White Noise' by Don DeLillo is a masterful, somewhat satirical work of literature that illustrates the dysfunctional lives of Jack Gladney a professor of Hitler Studies, his wife Babette, and their many children, living in a small college town in rural New York. Over the course of the book, Jack endures a "toxic event", Babette's drug problems and lies, an overwhelming fear of death, and a horde of kids that, at some points, seem smarter than their parents. The book reads not so much as a suspense thriller, but more of a chronology of bizarre events, and the effect that they have on the life of Jack. The most climactic of these events being the aptly named "airborne toxic event" which is the obvious turning point in the book. The event not only severely alters the life of Jack, but also nearly drives him to the point of murder. The book has several themes worth explicating, but the most obvious and most important to the landscape of the novel is death. Jack has an unhealthy fear of death that is channeled through his obsession with Hitler. This fear forces himself and the reader to ask the question: is Jack a killer or dier?'

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