The Green in "White Noise": Consumption, Technology, and the Environment

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine consumption in White Noise from two aspects: the characters’ motivations to consume and, subsequently, the ecological consequences of this consumption. Through this discussion of consumption, I propose a re- thinking of White Noise’s canonical status as a postmodern novel, suggesting that perhaps it is a pioneer of a post-postmodern genre.

Chapter One begins with an exploration of why it may be “natural” for Jack and Babette to want to consume, which reveals that the they consume to viscerally remain detached from their inanimate environment, ultimately allowing them to “conquer” death. However, the characters’ unnatural, over-consumption results in a state of being too detached; and this feeling of disconnection renders their consumption unfulfilling because they feel an ambiguous lack of a concrete something. This feeling of lack results in a desire for an attachment to something real and tangible in a world of commodities and simulacra, which I propose entails a return to “ancient” “tribal” values.

But, in Chapter Two, I show that a sense of telos can also satiate this desire for existential attachment. I first discuss how consumption results in the formation of identities. In a world of commodities designed for immediate exhaustion, we see Jack Gladney consume to constitute an infinite chain of identities to shield him from his own mortality. Yet, again, we see this same ambiguous lack of something that renders Jack’s succession of identities unfulfilling. I suggest, then, what Jack truly desires is a single, stable identity as a teleologically-oriented producer, an attachment that would give his life meaning. In the second half of this chapter, I shift gears to discuss the consequences of consumption, relaying Deitering’s notion that in place of a society of consumers, we may see a society of waste-producers. I then explain how, using the idea of archeology as a tool, Jack may be able to fasten himself to a single identity by restoring the waste of his already-used-up commodities.

In the final chapter, I first explain how mankind has now risen to the status of a geological force, capable of creating ecological crises. I then examine “The Airborne Toxic Event” section through ecological perspectives to show that man’s production of waste has the potential to inspire environmental cataclysms, especially when mankind refuses to acknowledge the consequences of its actions. I follow this section with a re-reading of Jack’s confrontation with Mink, showing how this scene may serve as an allegory for man’s ascension to the status of a geological force: by trying to detach from and conquer our environment, we have, ultimately, created a planet that requires us to save it; we must re-attach to our surroundings. I end by positing that White Noise’s true accomplishment may lie in its upheaval of the “ancient” and its relocation of that sense of stability within Jack, which mirrors the agency that mankind has attained as a geological force. Perhaps, more optimistically, the post-postmodern will come to show man’s ability to re-enchant his commoditized world, just as White Noise does through its descriptions of beautiful sunsets caused by the atmospheric presence of Nyodene D.