In the passages from White Noise, the author, Don DeLillo, plays with the irony associated with the topic identity. DeLillo was born in New York and has written ten novels. White Noise was written in 1985 and “was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received the American Book Award in Fiction” (527). Not much is known about DeLillo’s personal history because he stated to an interviewer that he “was reluctant to share (the) details”. DeLillo clearly showed how one could associate identity to the external forces a surrounding society radiates. The author used consumer behavior and items to uncover identity by connecting unique meanings to the things the characters did, bought, or saw during trips to the supermarket and mall.
Beginning with the market, DeLillo exemplified a couple aspects of perceptions. Once inside, many references to packaging and noise were made. For example, DeLillo used words such as “filmy” and “shiny” to describe some objects. I believe the author did this because people in our society often confuse the outer layers of certain
objects as to the complete matter that lies inside. When Jack said “the bins were arranged diagonally and backed by mirrors that people accidentally punched when reaching for fruit in the upper rows” (530) demonstrated the old saying, “looks can be deceiving”. The use of the mirrors hints to a false perception in the sense that by looking at a mirror you never see the true reflection, but rather a backward or reversed reflection. For example, a sign with the letters A B C printed in that order would be viewed by the human eye as C B A once put in front of a mirror. How are people truly able to view themselves if this idea is true? Even taking a picture would offer the same result. The quote, “people tore filmy bags off racks and tried to figure out which end opened” (530) also lends itself to the same idea. The use of the word “filmy” offers a sense of layering. Putting this into perspective, film is usually what lies on top of things and can often distort the original view, so I believe that DeLillo used this as a means to describe misperceptions. Next, when Murray was t
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