Awash in white noise: Don DeLillo, Martin Heidegger and technology

This thesis uses Martin Heidegger's essay "The Question Concerning Technology" to illuminate issues of technology and its domination of humankind in Don DeLillo's novel White Noise. The thesis illustrates how technological "progress" has enslaved the novel's main characters. It also shows how they fight to live healthy, "natural" lives in a technological society where simulacra have replaced nature and natural processes.;When Heidegger wrote "The Question Concerning Technology" in 1949, he warned humankind about the dangers of being "Enframed" by technology--that is, made a mere resource or cog for the technological process. Heidegger argues that humankind is either Enframed by technology, or is living at peace with it, in a state of poiesis. The characters in White Noise are living Enframed lives because they misunderstand the role technology plays in their postmodern culture.