| Don DeLillo's While Noise gives a vivid portrayal of the contemporary American society and presents us a postmodern panorama in which people are experiencing alienation brought by commodity,consumption and various electronic technologies.Based on social critiques done by cultural theorists like Jean Baudrillard,Fredric Jameson and Herbert Marcuse who are all influenced by Marx,this thesis tries to analyze phenomena of alienation in this fascinating novel.My thesis consists of five parts:the introduction,three chapters and the conclusion.The introduction part gives a general survey of Don DeLillo's writing career and works and a literature review on White Noise.Chapter One includes a brief historical sketch of the concept of alienation and a discussion of its development in postmodern era.Chapter two is a textual analysis of phenomena of al ienation in the novel.The alienation connected to electronic technology like mass media,imaging technique and computer will be discussed first and the second part concentrates on the alienation in sign-saturated consumer culture.In chapter three,the effects of alienation will be explored.The first part is to probe into how characters under conditions of alienation are controlled by the system of representation.Despite the consequence of control,the state of alienation also exerts a constructive influence on those people whose new postmodern selfhood is shaped by a sense of sacredness and belonging.This effect of construction will be discussed in the second part.At last,the conclusion will be drawn that pervasive in postmodern society depicted in White Noise,alienation presents a new face in the sign-saturated and media-saturated consumerist culture.Under conditions of alienation,people are held in leash by a system of representations and meanwhile a new postmodern selfhood is constructed by actions and emotions affected by estrangement.Therefore,alienation in White Noise not only produces the effect of control but also that of construction. |
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