Don Dellilo's protagonist in his novel "White Noise", Jack Gladney, has a "nuclear family" which is, apparently, a prime example of the disjointed nature of " family” of the 80s and 90s – with Jack's multiple past marriages and the fact that his children are not all related. It is essentially the antipodean image of the "nuclear family" of the 1950s. Despite this superficial disjunction, it is his family and the "extrasensory relationship" that he shares with them that allows Jack to survive in his world. Jack's friend Murray asserts that "family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted" (82). Heinrich, Jack's son, explains this notion in his constant "doubt" of reality, arguing, for example, that "it's all a question of brain chemistry, of signals coming and going, of electrical energy in the cortex" (45). Jack is caught in a perpetual tension between experiencing reality and his relationships with his family as "real", while simultaneously being told that there is no "real", that the man is nothing more than “the sum total of” its “data” (141). . It is only through the story of the past, the sensual experience of objects and the transcendent nature of his relationship with his children that Jack is able to affirm the actuality of "reality", to affirm, e.g. , that love is more than just a biological chemical. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"?Get the original essayIronically, for Jack and Babette, it is only by recounting the past that they are able to "save" themselves “from the past” (30). Jack explains that he and Babette talk about everything: "The smell of panties, the feeling of empty afternoons, the feeling of things raining on our skin, things like facts and passions, the feeling of pain, of loss... pleasure In these nightly recitations we create a space between things as we felt them then and as we speak them now... The means by which we save ourselves from the past. (30). Thus, by recounting "the smell of panties", etc., and viewing such encounters with "irony, sympathy and affectionate amusement", Jack is able not only to affirm the present and to escaping the past, but accomplishes something much greater: namely the ability to affirm the "reality" of such feelings. Thus, the family, in this case Babette, serves as a medium through which Jack is able to overcome Heinrich's skepticism (which is representative of modern "science" (24)) regarding the "reality" of human emotions. Furthermore, DeLillo's image of Jack and Babette "saving" themselves "from the past" also suggests that without family or anyone to commune with, man can become lost in the past. DeLillo's novel is almost obsessively interested in household appliances: televisions, radios, microwaves, etc. They are omnipresent, not only in the worlds of the characters but in the story itself. DeLillo repeatedly interrupts his story with phrases such as “TV said: And other trends that could have a big impact on our wallet” (61) or “MasterCard, Visa, American Express” (100) or “ That chirping was just the radiator” (94). ). Just as Jack's world is permeated with such objects, so is the narrative, a technique DeLillo uses to force the reader into Jack Gladney's world. Objects play a dualistic role in Jack's family life. Jack tells us that "Babette and I talk in the kitchen... We view the rest of the house as a storage space for... all the unused items from the."