Crises In American Technological World During Cold War Era ——On Don DeLillo’s Underworld

Don DeLillo (1936-) is a distinguished writer in American contemporary literature. He is regarded by Harold Bloom as one of the four major American novelists of his time, the other three being Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, and Cormac McCarthy. His novels have covered fields as diverse as technological development, terrorism, consumerism and mass culture, penetrating into the anxiety and paranoia brought by the Cold War, the ecological crisis by irrational use of technology and the rampant of consumer culture. DeLillo’s Underworld, published in 1977, is widely regarded as his greatest novel with more than eight hundred pages. This novel depicts a society suffused with nuclear panic, consumerism and rampant technological waste during American Cold War era. It also reflects DeLillo’s great concern about modern people in a technological world.Based on the concepts in Herbert Marcuse’s theory including technology rationality, false needs and artistic de-sublimation, this thesis reveals various crises generated by technology, discerning the deep relationship between human beings and technology, so as to study the issue of rational use of technology. Besides, this thesis also incorporates Marcuse’s redemption function of art (art’s transgression and indictment towards the society) to probe into the redemptive power of art in this novel. Underworld reveals DeLillo’s query and critique to the irrational use of technology in American society. And meanwhile, it shows his deep concern about the issues of human liberation.This thesis consists of three parts. Introduction gives a brief summary of Don DeLillo and his works, Herbert Marcuse’s social critical theory, literature review and the thesis arrangement.The main body consists of three chapters. Chapter One penetrates into the issue of ethical crisis represented by the nuclear weapons pursuers Charles Wainwright and Matt Shay. In the early period of Cold War, American government takes advantages of people’s nuclear panic to advocate technological rationality thinking, transforming the citizens into tools of the government’s hegemony, which further affirms Marcuse’s opinion on technology’ becoming American government’s new forms of control. In Underworld, the navigator Charles begins to doubt the justice of his job when experiencing numerous wars and the damaging harm to nature. Meanwhile, Matt also questions the justice of his work as a weapons analyst when facing the nuclear victims. By depicting the ethical issues in Underworld, DeLillo successfully enables people to rethink profoundly about the roots and consequences of problems in the technological society.Chapter Two examines people’s puzzles of identity as the Americans still live under the shadow of nuclear panic. In explaining the puzzles of personal identity, this part will focus on Nick Shay’s loss of identity after experiencing the abandonment of his father, manslaughter of his friend. When released from the prison, he moves to the Phoenix in quest of his identity. Quite the opposite, he becomes deeply lost in this rather technological world. In terms of the puzzles of national identity, this part focuses on two baseball games respectively in prior and later period of Cold War. From the above analysis it can be perceived that with the development of technology, the representation of baseball as national cohesion gradually fades away. DeLillo’s description of the videotapes of Texas High Way Killer reflects Americans’ attempt to regain their sense of collective belonging through the rapid development of mass media and communication technologies. On the contrary they become increasingly perplexed in the commercialized society.Chapter Three discusses the artistic crisis in Underworld respectively from the perspective of artistic de-sublimation and artistic alienation. According to Marcuse, art in effect, is artistic alienation. It performs the function of exposing, criticizing and improving the society. However, the increasingly developed technology undermines both the forms and the basis of artistic alienation. With its incorporation into commodity, artistic alienation is transformed into artistic de-sublimation. In Underworld, the painter Klara Sax places her landscape painting in the remote desert, inaccessible to the mass. As her art relies much on the corporation with the government and the publicity of the mass media, to some extent, it falls prey to commodity. Similarly, the gallery artist Acey Greenwood’s art in gallery also becomes commodity as it caters to the commodity market; However, in Underworld, the satirical comic Lenny Bruce delivers five stand-up club performances centering on the Cuban Missile Crisis. He helps his audience to overcome their nuclear panic through his real art of public speaking. The graffiti artist Ismael Munoz uses his backstreet’s art to fight against the commercialized society, announcing the existence of the poor to the public. In describing Lenny and Ismael’s arts, DeLillo intends to realize the redemptive power of art and save the alienated American society.The last part goes to the conclusion which points out the importance and value of this novel. In brief, from the perspective of Marcuse’s critical social theory, this thesis expects to make an investigation of this novel. In exposing all sorts of crises and suggesting possible redemptions, Don DeLillo shows his wish to the rational utilization of technology and reconstruction of a healthy technological world.