An Analysis Of The Alienation In Don DeLillo's White Noise

Don DeLillo is an American prominent post-modern novelist. His novel, White Noise, published in 1985, is one of the most influential fictions in the 20th -century American literature. Owing to the publication of this book, DeLillo won the American Book Award in 1986. Since then, much attention and critical acclaim have rushed to this fiction. The critics and scholars have mainly discussed the novel from such perspectives as ecologism, consumerism, postmodernism, death, history, and so forth. Evidently, the contemporary America is an alienated post-modern society in the novel; however, few pay attention to such phenomenon of alienation in White Noise.This thesis, based on the theory of alienation developed by the western Marxists including Lukacs, Fromm and Marcuse and post-modern theorist Baudrillard, attempts to analyze the phenomenon of alienation from the two perspectives of consumption and technology in White Noise. Through the analysis, the thesis reveals further that the postmodern people in the novel have to be confronted with various survival crises in the double alienation of consumption and technology.The thesis consists of six parts:the introduction, four chapters and the conclusion.The introduction briefly states the time background of the novel, the DeLillo's literary career, main works and achievements, and makes a comprehensive literature review on White Noise from both at home and abroad and hence the significance of the study is pointed out.Chapter One reviews the origin of alienation and Marx's theory of alienation, and then systematically introduces the main ideas about alienation after Marx, which are the theoretic foundation of the whole research. Chapter Two analyzes the alienation of consumption in the novel, which is mainly embodied in the phenomenon of reification, the process and result of consumption. Chapter Three deals with the alienation of technology, including the permeation of technology in people's daily life, the manipulation of technological media over humans and the abusing of new technology. Chapter Four explores the consequences of alienation, that is, the humans' survival crisis in face of alienation:Jack and Babette's endless fear and anxiety, people's lonely and aimless state of life and the numbness of human emotion and rationality.The conclusion part points out that DeLillo's criticism of contemporary American society is indeed valuable, and then emphasizes the main ideas and arguments of the thesis, revealing that the desperate and hopeless ending of the novel is an indication to the continuing of alienation and human suffering. Finally, it states the realistic significance of the study. The research on the alienation can also serve as a good warning for China in developing its economy and society.