VOL. IV (XXI) 2009 - Departamentul de Filosofie si Stiinte ale ...

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ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII DE VEST DIN TIMIŞOARA SERIA FILOSOFIE ŞI ŞTIINŢE ALE COMUNICĂRII VOL. IV (XXI), 2009 ISSN 1844 – 1351 (online) ISSN 1842 – 6638 (print) “CONSUME OR DIE”: MEDIA, NECROPHOBIA AND HYPERCONSUMERISM IN DON DELILLO’S WHITE NOISE Adina BAYA West University of Timişoara Abstract Consumption and death are two overwhelming presences in the work of Don DeLillo, one of the most appreciated contemporary American novelists. The current paper attempts to regard both issues from the perspective of their built-in connection, developing in the overarching frame of the media-saturated society. To “consume or die” is “the mandate of our culture,” as one of the characters in the novel Underworld observes—an exclusivist dualism that characterizes life in the postmodern era, as pictured by Don DeLillo 1 . In his best known novel, White Noise, the pathological fear of dying and ensuing hypochondria of characters Babette and Jack Gladney can be regarded as a mark of the society they live in, which is ruled by an incessant drive for consumption. The following paragraphs aim to explore the development of necrophobia in the context of hyperconsumerism and media abundance, drawing on ideas and concepts theorized by several thinkers who show concern for these topics, with a focus on Jean Baudrillard. 1 Don DeLillo, Underworld, Scribner, New York, 1997, p. 287.
ADINA BAYA 93 In his characterization of postmodern society, Fredric Jameson contends that all areas of life have become integrated into commodity production, and into “the frantic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods (from clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of turnover.” 2 In other words, it is an environment celebrating the large-scale commodification of both objects and humans, of which the central characters in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise, the Gladneys, seem to be up-to-date representatives. Made up of children Heinrich, Denise, Steffie and Wilder, who each are the result of a different marriage, as well as Jack and Babette, who are fulfilling the role of parents though they do not have any children together, the Gladney family is far from the archetypal image of the American nuclear family. Moreover, it stands as evidence for the fact that in postmodern times domestic relations themselves have become “commodified,” allowing for marriages, children, love affairs and all their consequent emotional baggage to be consumed with the same incessant appetite that characterizes supermarket shopping. The sheer mechanism that makes consumer society possible is based, as Baudrillard 3 argues, on a perpetual renewal of commodities—a term that, as discussed above, does not refer solely to commercial products, but to all areas of life, from cultural expression to social relationships—and hence on a constant pressure for their replacement. All goods have “wastage built into them” and are condemned to transience, because no commodity is produced for “its use-value or its possible durability, but rather with an eye to its death.” 4 This “perpetual calculated ‘suicide’” of commodities and the constant pressure for the shortening of their life cycles makes death a symbolic concept defining consumer society and consequently its members. Jack and Babette’s obsession with dying can be seen as the result of the unavoidable demise of everything around them—from expired consumer products to failed marriages. A number of key scenes in White Noise take place in the supermarket that—along with the larger-dimensioned Mall—functions as a postmodern agora, a place where Jack and his family not only meet their commercial needs, but also their relational ones. In the words of character Murray Siskind, with whom they seem to meet every time they go shopping, it is a place that “recharges us spiritually, it prepares us, it’s a gateway or a pathway” and it is “full of psychic data […] concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural material.” 5 The experience of shopping at Mid-Village Mall represents a gratifying manifestation of Jack and his family’s desire to acquire and possess things, whether needed or 2 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1991, p. 4. 3 Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, Sage, London, 1998. 4 Baudrillard, 1998, p. 47. 5 Don DeLillo, White Noise, Penguin Books, New York, 1986, p.16.
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SECTION I: PHILOSOPHY: Contents: Mi
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9 THEATRUM MUNDI aversion of Nietzs
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13 LA SPECIFICITE DES CONCEPTS DES
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21 VALENCES ÉTHIQUES DE LA RATIONN
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35 THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF GOD AND
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Page 41 and 42: 41 THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF GOD AND
Page 49 and 50: ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII DE VEST DIN
Page 51 and 52: ANDREEA NAGY 51 communication entre
Page 53 and 54: ANDREEA NAGY 53 lutte dans le proc
Page 57 and 58: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 57 eastern European
Page 59 and 60: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 59 goods and servic
Page 61 and 62: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 61 to have the capa
Page 65 and 66: IASMINA PETROVICI 65 subjective rep
Page 67 and 68: IASMINA PETROVICI 67 metaphorical s
Page 69 and 70: IASMINA PETROVICI 69 D. Davidson 14
Page 73 and 74: VIRGIL LAURENŢIU SPĂTARU 73 menta
Page 75 and 76: VIRGIL LAURENŢIU SPĂTARU 75 (√-
Page 77 and 78: VIRGIL LAURENŢIU SPĂTARU 77 In th
Page 79 and 80: VIRGIL LAURENŢIU SPĂTARU 79 it be
Page 83 and 84: OANA BARBU 83 We therefore believe
Page 85 and 86: OANA BARBU 85 established contexts,
Page 87 and 88: OANA BARBU 87 text is accompanied b
Page 89 and 90: OANA BARBU 89 As Charles Forceville
Page 91: OANA BARBU 91 textual, the non-verb
Page 95 and 96: ADINA BAYA 95 own sake, looking and
Page 97 and 98: ADINA BAYA 97 […] I’ve been afr
Page 99 and 100: ADINA BAYA 99 theorizes as the “m
Page 101 and 102: ADINA BAYA 101 engaging in: “Was
Page 103 and 104: ADINA BAYA 103 collective sacrifice
Page 107 and 108: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 107 Russian officia
Page 109 and 110: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 109 its nuclear war
Page 111 and 112: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 111 One of 18 Ohio
Page 113 and 114: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 113 The Kursk wreck
Page 115 and 116: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 115 because that se
Page 117 and 118: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 117 sacrifice for t
Page 119 and 120: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 119 not so short ne
Page 121: References: ADRIAN PĂCURAR 121 Ald
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