The novel White Noise by Don Delillo is a text firmly anchored in the modern world. Through the novel, both postmodernist satire and post-structuralist understanding of the world, DeLillo presents an incredibly cynical view of the modern world through its narrator and protagonist Jack Gladney, director of Hitler studies at a Midwestern American university. The novel layers a narrative on Gladney's entirely unspectacular life that explores the role of technology, computing, and simulation in the postmodern world, presenting contemporary America as enveloped in a system of cyclical programs and of paradoxes. The result is a novel that probes deeply into the contemporary sense of reality, showing how in our postmodern world there is nothing concrete, nothing solid or reliable. White Noise presents a world where, thanks to the intervention of technology, reality is a fiction in its own right. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay To have a good understanding of white noise, it is essential to understand the basics of postmodernism and post-structuralism. Within both postmodernism and post-structuralism, there is an overall nihilism, and although postmodernism is a much broader field than post-structuralism, there are many other similarities between the two. Post-structuralism, a reaction of literary criticism against the unifying semiotics of structuralism, attests that there is no coherent self, that the author's intention is secondary to the reader's interpretation, that a good understanding of a text is one that incorporates as many interpretations as possible (even if these are contradictory) and there is no solidity in the signifier-signified relationship of language claimed by structuralism. This thus sums up a movement based on inconsistency, inconsistency and malleability, in a world where nothing can be truly known, understood or experienced. Postmodernism also demonstrates an unknowable and incoherent self, while postmodern literature often incorporates dark humor, paranoia, metafictional elements, intertextuality, and hyperreality, all of which can be seen through white noise. If we replace "text" with "experience" in reference to post-structuralism, we are easily able to apply post-structuralist analysis to the events of the novel, while simultaneously allowing us to pursue a post-structuralist reading of the processes of the novel themselves. Furthermore, the aspects of the novel revealed by post-structuralist analysis reinforce the fact that White Noise is fully within the postmodern tradition. For example, the novel is infused with dark humor that serves to reveal the threatening and debauched ideals and discourses that lie behind contemporary American culture. Gladney's professional title, "Chairman of the Hitler Studies Department" is compelling black humor and alludes to the macabre undercurrent in America that DeLillo draws the reader's attention to throughout the novel.[1] The constant recycling of information within academia and mass culture, as well as the self-awareness that comes from an academic life and career exemplified by Jack's position, supports both the postmodern black humor and the post-structuralist assertion that it is the reader and not the author who counts: it is Jack's reading of Hitler's actions that counts and not the actions themselves. Postmodernism and post-structuralism feature in White Noise, weavingcomplex thematic points again and again, reinforcing a cyclical and highly cynical view of modern America. Many of White Noise's postmodern/post-structuralist elements come from DeLillo's inclusion of technology in white noise. narrative. Technology in the modern world comes, for DeLillo and his protagonist, to embody the cyclical, repetitive, and inauthentic nature of the contemporary psyche, full of dissonance and coded meanings. One of the first examples of this is the first section of the novel “Waves and Radiations”. [DeLillo, pp. 1] Even the title of this section, and the very title of the novel, White Noise, suggests the thematic technological dissonance that runs throughout the novel as a whole. Waves (in the suggested technological sense), radiation and white noise are products of the modern world, and yet they are intangible things, invisible and inaudible to the individual's senses and experienced only through technological processes. These three things are encountered constantly in our daily lives: radio waves in our cars, white noise from static electricity in our televisions, radiation that cooks our food in microwave ovens. However, despite their inclusion in our reality, how can we be sure that they are actually real? If we only experience them through some sort of technological translation, how can we be sure that they are real and not a fictional byproduct of technology? Can we feel radiation outside of a needle pointing at a number on a Geiger counter? Is there white noise that we can hear without listening to static between TV channels? With the title of his book and the headings of the sections of the text, DeLillo already presents a postmodern paranoia regarding the reality of reality, an inauthenticity in what we call reality, and a world where technology has altered our perception and the way which we question. the existence of what surrounds us. This feeling that technology has finally changed our perception of the world is at the center of one of the comedic scenes in “Waves and Radiation.” Jack and his precocious fourteen-year-old son Heinrich argue about whether it's raining or not: “It's going to rain tonight. » “It’s raining now,” I said. “The radio said tonight. » […] “Look at the windshield,” I said. “Is it raining or not?” “I'm just telling you what they said.” [DeLillo, pp. 22] Heinrich often comes to illustrate the tendencies of technology to alter perception, often to a comical level of absurdity, as this example shows. We can assume, thanks to Jack's reliable narration in the novel, that. it is physically raining and there is evidence of that rain on the windshield of his car. However, this is because we trust the narration of Jack who himself trusts his own senses. still exists firmly in the world of sensory experience, Heinrich, on the other hand, does not trust his senses, but rather places his trust in the information that technology transmits to him as the concrete truth about his reality: “Our senses are. are much more wrong than they are right. This has been proven in the laboratory. Don't you know all these theorems which say that nothing is what it seems? There is no past, present or future outside of our own minds. [DeLillo, pp. 23] There is a gap between reality and information that has been paradoxically created by technology. Technology and science, the "laboratory" and the "theorems" mentioned by Heinrich, have "proved" that "our senses are wrong much more often than they are right" and that is why, because of this conclusion,Heinrich places his faith in information and technology over reality as it is experienced through his senses. Technology has altered Heinrich's reality, so that only technology is reliable. Reality, for Heinrich, is too changeable, too inconsistent to be trusted, and that is why he places his trust in the still and fixed nature of technology. As Tom LeClair writes in his book In the Loop, Heinrich's “response is to information – quantified measures of exposure, possible long-term consequences – rather than to entities.” [2] For Heinrich, sensual experience comes after informational reality. This alteration of perception, the secondary nature of sensory experience is illustrated again in "Waves and Radiation" through "THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA". [DeLillo, pp. 12] Jack is brought here by his perceptive colleague and highly philosophical Murray, and upon their arrival, Jack observes that “All the people had cameras” some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits A man in a stall was selling postcards and slides – some. photos of the barn taken from an elevated position [DeLillo, p. 12] Murray observes: “Once you see the signs for the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn… We are not here to capture an image. , we are here to maintain one. Each photograph reinforces the aura [DeLillo, pp. 12] This highly absurd situation, even if it is not as extreme as Heinrich's denial of rain, sums it up once again. how technology has changed our perception of reality. As Murray notes, once the sign "THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA" is seen, what you see is not an ordinary barn, but rather an object that exists through a label. It is impossible to see the barn for what it really is, an ordinary barn, because after reading this sign it has been objectified, labeled and transformed into a consumer product in your mind and perception. The barn has been included in a consumer-oriented discourse of postmodern America. But what is the origin of this speech? As Murray asks: “What did the barn look like before it was photographed? » [DeLillo, pp. 13] The answer can be drawn from a post-structuralist analysis of the barn. What makes the barn famous? The answer is that it has the title of “THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA” and that is why the fact that it has been photographed so many times is why it is so famous. Why has he been photographed so many times? It has been photographed many times because it has the title "THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA." There is no origin for this title, no reason behind the barn's fame or success as a tourist attraction. What exists is a post-structuralist cycle of paradoxical repetition and performative creation. Every photograph taken comes from the title and fame of the barn and then reinforces that title and fame. As far as we know, the barn was never photographed before becoming "THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA", and now the talk surrounding the barn is inescapable, there is no way to see the barn like a regular barn, or for the barn to return to a regular barn. The barn itself doesn't even exist, only the title projected onto it reinforced by the performative technological act of photography. As Frank Lentricchia writes: “'THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA' is the ostensible subject of the scene; the real subject is the electronic support of the image as an active context of contemporary existence in.". 88