Religious Chaos In Don Delillo's White Noise

Don Delillo is one of the most distinguished contemporary American post-modern novelists, whose works mainly deal with the social problems and human beings' living crises. White Noise, his eighth novel, is an epic one in Delillo's writing career. Besides its sharp analysis of consumerism and mass media, Delillo analyzes modern individuals' living crises and their religious chaos as well in this great novel. This thesis mainly investigates the religious chaos existing in White Noise, thus to give a basic understanding of Delillo's heroes and the world he created in White Noise. Owing to the unbearable living crises, most citizens are in desperation to find a rescuing power for their mental peaces. While tragically for them, the traditional religion has lost its function in this newly-engendered atmosphere. Hence, there is a great necessity for them to find another "religion" to resort to, a religion they could get genuine comfort in the restless world. Here, anything that can rescue people out of their fears could be a religion, something that has never been so chaotic in the human histories. All the weird issues like mass media, technology, crazy shopping, even Hitler studies and terrorist doctrines have been classified into these kinds of religions. As a great novelist, Delillo depicts vividly a picture of the religious confused citizens struggling in a distorted post-modern world.