Don DeLillo’s book White Noise is a satire of a plethora of themes and motifs. From American family life to academia he pokes fun at various aspects of life and death. Religion is a significant target of his satirical opinions. Through out the novel he creates outrageous scenes that reflect on ridiculous human behaviors regarding religion and spirituality. Whether it’s having a spiritual experience through visiting a barn or finding peace at the simplicity of an ATM machine DeLillo is constantly poking at certain human beliefs. One possible reason for his writing on this topic is the massive change in human behavior that occurred due to the technological explosion in the 1980s when he wrote White Noise.
This was one of the topics I almost chose to write on before settling on another. It's true that people find religion, or at least have semi-religious experiences, in many day to day things. White Noise felt like a serious read, but upon reflection it's easy to find bits of satire and humor that DeLillo interjected.
ReplyDeleteI also almost went more in this direction, but decided to choose on of the other essay options (there was so many ways to write about this novel it was hard to choose). It sounds like you plan on taking this idea into the context of when the book was written, which will be super interesting. Best of luck with the essay. :)
ReplyDeleteWow I am really interested in where this will end up. All of the mentions of religion in the book kind of blew right past me unnoticed.
ReplyDeleteI really like that you are looking at the religion and spirituality aspect of this - very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe entire first part of your introduction really grabbed my attention, but your thesis seems a little bit unsure and not extremely argumentative. I like how you summarized parts of the story leading up to the thesis though.
ReplyDelete