Commodity: Triggering Uncertainty and Dilemma in Delillo’s White Noise

Authors

  • Asif Kamal American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v6i6.1202

Abstract

Postmodern conditions and experiences, specifically, uncertainties and contradictions, multiple interpretations or perspectives, rejection of universal, the loss of individual in the face of plurality, precede some kind of inherent predicament and dilemma as a residue or by-product of the constant commodification of life. Don Delillo’s White Noise, as a product of the postmodern era by a postmodern thinker, incorporates these traits, and predominantly, the underlying dilemma. One of the issues of this research is to trace in this novel these postmodern contradictions and dilemmas, and subsequent bathos of consumer society, under the burden of intensified productivism. This research also aims at scrutinizing these socio-personal postmodern dilemmas in the characters of the novel and ends up analyzing some psychosomatic predicaments in their deeds and thoughts relating to the personal experiences and contexts of the readers of this novel

Author Biography

  • Asif Kamal, American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB)

    Asif Kamal, assistant professor in English Department at American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB), teaches EAP and English literaturecourses. He published research articles in different journals, and presented papers in international conferences. He also co-authored a book English for Academic Purposes patronized by British Council and UGC for tertiary level ESL classes in Bangladesh.

References

Aaron, Daniel. "How to Read Don DeLillo."Introducing Don DeLillo.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991. 67-81.

Baudrillard, Jean. Selected Writings.Edited by Mark Poster. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988.

DeCurtis, Anthony. "'An Outsider in This Society': An Interview with Don DeLillo." Introducing Don DeLillo.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991. 43-66.

Delillo, Don. White Noise. London: Penguin Books, 1985

--- David L. Ulin (interviewer), "Finding reason in an age of terror". The Los Angeles Times, Apr. 15, 2003. <http://perival.com/delillo/ddinterviews.html>

Ferraro, Thomas. "Whole Families Shopping at Night!"New Essays on White Noise.Ed.Frank Lentricchia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. 15-38, 174.

Lentricchia, Frank. "Introduction".New Essays on White Noise.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. 1-14.

---. "Tales of the Electronic Tribe."New Essays on White Noise.Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. 87-114.

Marx, Karl. Estranged Labour: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm

Nadotti, Maria. ‘‘An Interview with Don DeLillo.’’Salmagundi100 (1993): 86–97.

Osteen, Mark (Ed), Text and Criticism: White Noise, the Viking Critical Library, Penguin Books: London, 1998.

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Published

2017-06-29

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 6 (2017): June

Section

Article

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