On Postmodernist Features Of White Noise

Don DeLillo is one of the most important and influential novelists in modern America, and as a prolific writer, he has won many honors and rewards and his works have received substantial critical recognition. White Noise (1985), his "breakthrough book", brings him the National Book Award in 1986 and is generally regarded as a typical postmodernist novel.Based on postmodernist theories, especially on the theories of postmodernist literature presented by Ihab Hassan, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard, this thesis aims at revealing the postmodernist features of White Noise, of which depthlessness and indeterminacy are the most prominent ones. Through an application of these theories to the textual analysis of the book, we will be able to see clearly not only why Don DeLillo is claimed to be one of the excellent postmodernist writers, but how important those postmodernist features are.The thesis falls into four parts:Part one introduces Don DeLillo and White Noise as well as the current research status.Part two deals with the postmodernist theories, including the origin and emergence of postmodernism, the understanding of postmodernism and the major features of postmodernism.Part three deals with the postmodernist features displayed in White Noise, and elaborates the two most prominent features in particular, that is, depthlessness and indeterminacy. By means of obliterating suspense and creating depthless characters, DeLillo succeeds in producing the feature of depthlessness; and with the blurring of life and fiction, the parody of epiphany and the collage of fragments and different genres of novel, the feature of indeterminacy is also well manifested.Part four draws a conclusion and emphasizes the importance of these postmodernist features.