Technological Rationality And Alienation:a Study Of White Noise From The Perspective Of Frankfurt Critical Cultural Theory

Don DeLillo is widely acknowledged by literary critics as an outstanding post modern American writer. His works demonstrate a vivid picture of different American lifestyles from the late20th to the early years of this century. White Noise, published in1985, is regarded as one of the most representative post modern fictions in the American literature. Then DeLillo soon won the National Book Award of America next year because of the publication of White Noise. Through the description of Jack’s family, the author mainly shows us the living condition of middle-class families in post modern America. The products of high technology exist everywhere of the characters’ life and exert deep influences on them. To reveal how the technological rationality alienates people’s life and what Don DeLillo’s attitude toward post modern society, the thesis attempts to interpret White Noise by using the critical theory of technological rationality as well as the alienation theory of Frankfurt School.As we know, the Frankfurt School occupies an extremely important place in Western Marxism. Since the establishment of Frankfurt School, it opened its history of critical social theory which took "all the material and spiritual culture of the whole humanity" as the object to reveal and explain "the fate of man as a member of society" and to criticize the Capitalist society from philosophical and sociological genre in general. The theory is inspired from Marx’s alienation theory and they think that in the20th century, the bondage and domination of alienation has shifted from political oppression and economic exploitation to various and alienated cultural force. Thus, Frankfurt School’s critical social theory also can be regarded as a critical cultural theory based on alienation theory. However, technological rationality is an essential critical perspective in the overall framework of the Western Marxism’s critical cultural theory. To some degree, the occurrence of issues such as popular culture, ideology, modernity and the national governing forms are directly related to the consequences of technological rationality progress. In one word, Frankfurt School’s critical cultural theory is a critical theory of technological rationality based on the alienation theory. The technological rationality refers to a new kind of thinking pattern produced under the development of science and technology. It is believed that human not only grasp the rational structure of the universe through reason and science, but also conquer nature by technical mean. In fact, science and technology and its corresponding rationality promote human society to develop in an unprecedented rate under the conditions of post modern industrial civilization so as to change the face of human existence radically, but it also brings its inherent profound cultural crisis. The catastrophe of World War II and the evil threat of atomic bomb have exposed the cultural crisis vividly before the world. Technological rationality is no longer simply a confirmation of human nature, but has converted to a "technological devil" to alienate human being so that human degenerate into a slave of technology from a master of nature, which is clearly reflected in White Noise.The thesis includes six chapters. Chapter one gives a general introduction to Don DeLillo and White Noise with literature review related to them. Chapter two explains the history of Frankfurt School and its critical cultural theory including the critical theory of technological rationality and the theory of alienation. Chapter three centers on the ubiquitous participation of high technological products in people’s life, which reflects the duality feature of technological rationality. In post modern society, technological rationality gradually becomes an alienation power to dominate people’s behaviors instead its original purpose to liberate mankind from the control of myth and superstitions. Chapter four focuses on the alienation effects of the technological rationality on the characters which present as followed, such as people’s survival crisis in the Airborne Toxic Event, loss of belief and the couple’s frequent fear of death and so on. Chapter five reveals DeLillo’s attitude toward post modern technology. In this fiction, DeLillo implies his confusion about the post modern society by pointing out several negative influences of high technology. The chapter six concludes the effects of high technical products on people’s life, the alienation in particular.