The Living Conditions Of Postmodern Man

Don Delillo (1936- ) is one of the most prominent American postmodern novelists. To date, he has produced 14 novels, 15 short stories, eight plays (including one unpublished), one novella and other writings. Being the eighth novel of Delillo, White Noise was published in 1985. Since its publication, it has received much attention and critical acclaim. It won the American Book Award in fiction and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Critics have argued about whether it can be categorized as a postmodern novel, but few disagree with the fact that the novel is concerned with the problems of contemporary America: rampant consumerism, media saturation, deteriorating environment, marriage and family problems and spiritual crises, etc.The purpose of this thesis is to apply Maslow's need hierarchy theory to the analysis of people's gratification conditions in different levels of needs in White Noise and to expose postmodern American living conditions. The paper consists of six parts, including an introduction and a conclusion.The first part is the introduction, in which the background of the creation of White Noise, the general overview of Delillo's life, his literary career and literary achievements are given, followed by the plot of the novel and the literature review on studies of the novel. Finally, the application of the theory in the analysis is introduced.The first chapter explores the need hierarchy theory proposed and developed by Maslow, the American humanistic psychologist. According to him, there are generally five levels of the human needs ranging from the lowest level to the highest: physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.The second chapter mainly deals with the predicament of the safety needs, which is the most important factor that influences the behaviors of the people in the novel. The first level of the need hierarchy is the physiological needs, which can be basically gratified in every society except some certain situations. The society depicted in the novel is a most affluent one. The material prosperity of this society is discussed to show that this postmodern society provides the people with a solid material base on which people can better gratify their physiological needs. However, the material wealth can not guarantee gratification in other need hierarchies. The author of this thesis shows various manifestations of predicament of gratification in physical safety needs and psychological safety needs. People are suffering from the noises coming from the external world and the inner world. Noises from all kinds of mass media saturate the life of people; pollution surrounding them is detrimental to their health. What's worse is their inner noise—the fear of death. Though they try all means to get rid of it, they can not escape being influenced. The needs of safety are not well gratified in the general sense.Chapter Three elaborates on the loss of belongingness and love. As people in the society have the need to belong to a certain group and love others and to be loved by others, the people in this society are no exceptions. But contrary to their will, they can not gratify the needs of belongingness and love in their family members and friends. In this part, the author of the thesis shows the problems of postmodern family and marriage by taking the protagonist Jack as a typical example. Meanwhile, some minor characters that lack belongingness and love are also discussed. There are many reasons leading to this predicament such as the great mobility of social population, the discard of the traditional family values and the effects of the media. Among them, the effects of the media are the major factor and thus discussed emphatically. The mass media bombard the people with news, soap operas, advertisements, preventing the communication of feeling and ideas among each other.The last chapter is devoted to the analysis of the predicament of gratification of esteem needs. Jack's futile efforts to gratify this hierarchy of needs are emphatically analyzed. By initiating the studies of Hitler, Jack makes himself admired by others to a certain extent, while his sense of self-esteem is not strong since his success is not gained from his true learning but by other unreasonable means. The final result is that he fails to gratify his esteem needs. Meanwhile, there are some minor characters in the novel such as Heinrich, Tom Roy Foster, Orester, and Willie Mink who resort to means beyond understanding to gratify their esteem needs but only to fail at last. The reasons why they fail do not lie in themselves completely, and the society is to blame, too.The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis and points out the significance of the study. With the help of Maslow's need hierarchy theory, we get to know the profound reasons for the failure of postmodern people gratifying their safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs. Therefore the study is of positive significance for us to build a harmonious society.