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

ADINA BAYA 95
own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of
buying, then buying it. […] I began to grow in value and self-regard. I filled
myself out, found new aspects of myself, located a person I'd forgotten
existed. Brightness settled around me.” The Mall is described as a luminous,
heavenly setting, with its gardens and promenades, cheery bells chiming and
escalators humming, as well as the all-encompassing “human buzz of some
vivid and happy transaction.” 8 It is the place that invites to complete
relaxation and celebration of hedonistic desires, facilitating a deep
satisfaction and self-fulfillment. In the words of Baudrillard, the Mall reveals
itself as “the geometrical locus of abundance” and represents “the manifest
presence of surplus, the magical, definitive negation of scarcity, the
maternal, luxurious sense of being already in the Land of Cockaigne” or in
the mythical “Valleys of Canaan.” 9 Inducing happiness is possible through
what Baudrillard considers “magical thinking” or the “belief in the
omnipotence of signs,” a quasi-religious invocation of the gods of “Wellbeing”
and “Bliss,” but only at a superficial level, because “affluence is, in
effect, merely the accumulation of the signs of happiness.” 10 Like in the case
of the frenzied search for Dylar, a drug meant to annihilate fear of death, not
the actual cause of death, the Mall provides a frame in which the signs of
happiness are able to trigger a temporary sense of liberation.
The “reckless abandon” made possible in this setting, the unleashed
desire to consume things in large amounts, without having a particular need
for them, to frantically spend and acquire, grants shopping a narcotic value.
The euphoric atmosphere of the Mall is symbolically rendered as similar to
that of a psychotropic drug, with a power to induce vast degrees of pleasure
and elevate its consumers into a higher state of consciousness, locating new
parts of their own selves and enjoying an overwhelming sense of
“brightness.” However, as in the case of a narcotic experience, the induced
exhilaration lasts for only a limited time and the post-euphoric tendency is
one of saturation and seclusion: “We drove home in silence. We went to our
respective rooms, wishing to be alone.” 11
The presentation of shopping as an addictive practice and of
consumers as caught up in their search for the euphoria of spending appears
throughout White Noise, affecting characters in different ways. As a key
symbol in the age ruled by consumption, the supermarket is the ultimate
place of reassurance for consumers, bringing a soothing routine to their lives.
For this reason, a change in how the shelves are arranged triggers “agitation
and panic in the aisles, dismay in the faces of older shoppers.” 12 The
immensity of the Mid-Village Mall also causes confusion and dread for the
Treadwell brothers, who get lost in its “vastness and strangeness” and are
8 DeLillo, 1986, p. 38.
9 Baudrillard, 1998, p. 27.
10 Baudrillard, 1998, p. 32.
11 DeLillo, 1986, p. 38.
12 DeLillo, 1986, p. 148.