The Lives of Objects–and the Death of Their Consumers
Throughout my reading of White Noise, I found myself questioning the role of possessions in the novel. There are multiple instances in which Jack, following a catastrophic or unsettling event, returns home and begins discarding his myriad possessions. Why is he doing this? What satisfaction might he gain in disposing of these seemingly meaningless objects? The answer lies in the novel’s critique of consumerism as a protective mechanism against death, and the fact that Jack’s amassed purchases ultimately betray him in fulfilling this objective.
The culture of White Noise is one in which consumerism reigns. The opening scene of the novel describes the annual arrival of the local college students, who bring with them carloads overflowing with “stuff.” The random TV and radio advertisements scattered throughout the text are always selling, selling, selling; selling anything and everything to the mass consumerist culture. The act of purchasing a product becomes a form of therapy and a safeguard against the unknown, and Jack and Babette are not immune to this contagion. In an early scene at the supermarket, Jack describes how “in the mass and variety of our purchases, in the sheer plentitude those crowded bags suggested, the weight and size and number, the family bargain packs with Day-Glo sale stickers, in the sense of replenishment we felt, the sense of well-being, the security and contentment these products brought to some snug home in our souls—it seemed we had achieved a fullness of being that is not known to people who need less, expect less, who plan their lives around lonely walks in the evening.” (20) Thus the overindulgent consumer is the one who triumphs, for in accumulating these unnecessary objects he believes he is surrounding himself with walls of bulletproof glass.
As the hub of consumerist culture, the supermarket itself represents an impenetrable haven from the terrors of death. This is made clear by Murray’s analogy to the supermarket as a Tibetan transitional state, a place that “recharges us spiritually, prepares us…a gateway or pathway.”“Here,” Murray says, “we don’t die, we shop.” (38) Shopping thus becomes the antithesis of dying. The more a man consumes, the less susceptible he is to his fate.
Another point of interest is this: Although children in the novel are consistently portrayed as more intelligent and level-headed than adults, they too fall prey to consumerist culture. In fact, they are consumerisms’ biggest proponents. Consumerist society, Murray states, “is a society of kids.” As children grow older, they become “less recognizable as a group, less targetable by advertisers and mass-producers of culture. You begin to feel estranged from the products you consume…it is only a matter of time before you experience the vast loneliness and dissatisfaction of consumers who have lost their group identity.” (50) Even Denise, the most logical of the bunch, seeks protection from material objects. She refuses to remove her green visor, which functions as her “interface with the world,” (37), and her room is cluttered with objects from her childhood that she has long since outgrown. This is simply “part of her strategy in a world of displacements to make every effort to restore and preserve, keep things together for their value as remembering objects, a way of fastening herself to a life.” (103) We can draw parallels here to Benjamin, who believed in collecting as a form of remembrance. Denise’s passion for collecting does indeed border on the chaos of memories.
There are several instances in which Jack blatantly uses consumerism as a form of protection and/or therapy. After running into a colleague at the local hardware store, Jack finds that his identity has been compromised. Eric Massingale tells Jack he looks like a “big, harmless, aging, indistinct sort of guy.” (83) These remarks flatly contradict the imposing image that Jack struggles to maintain. After this encounter, stripped of his defenses, Jack finds himself in the mood to shop. He heads to the Mid-Village-Mall and goes absolutely wild, buying anything and everything in sight.
“I began to grow in value and self-regard. I filled myself out, found new aspects of myself, located a person I’d forgotten existed. I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums.” (84)
Shopping, like Hitler, becomes a shield that protects Jack from the world as he constructs his indestructible identity.
A similar situation occurs after Babette confesses to Jack and he learns the truth about the Dylar. As the foundations of his life crumble around him, all Jack wants to do is consume—in the most literal sense of the word. He drives the family to a chicken restaurant, where they sit in the car and stuff their faces. There is no talking, no thinking; they do not even bother to leave the car. “We wanted to eat, not look around at other people. We wanted to fill our stomachs and get it over with. We didn’t need light and space. We were content to eat facing in the same direction, looking only inches past our hands.” (231) Here, the act of consuming directly functions as a form of therapy, protecting Jack against the strange and terrible world that he is forced to confront.
Jack’s consumerism, however, ultimately betrays him, and for this reason he takes to throwing his possessions away. As Jack learns more about his impending death following the Airborne Toxic Event, he realizes that his possessions do not guarantee immortality. His death is approaching; it is unavoidable; and all of his meaningless purchases cannot save him from this ineluctable fate. They have failed him; but what is worse, they have betrayed him. Murray tells Jack that his fear of death is so profound because he is unable to “say goodbye to himself.” (294) Following this realization, Jack returns home, where he discards of almost everything he owns. “I was in a vengeful and near savage state. I bore a personal grudge against these things. Somehow they’d put me in this fix. They’d dragged me down, made escape impossible.” (294) How is this so? According to Appadurai, our human projections onto our personal possessions allow them to acquire lives of their own. Essentially, objects become physical manifestations of their human owners. Thus all of Jack’s possessions, these physical representations of himself, do not save him from his fear of death, but rather make it inescapable. As DeLillo’s traditional American consumer, Jack believed that amassing an infinite collection of objects would protect him from his inevitable death. Paradoxically, Jack himself has become so invested in these possessions that their very presence reinforces his inability to part with himself. His possessions have betrayed him, and he must throw them away.
At the novel’s end, the reorganization of the supermarket ultimately signifies the betrayal of objects to promise immortality to their consumers. The shoppers, unable to find anything, are in a state of “agitation and panic.” (325) “There is a sense of wandering now, an aimless and haunted mood, sweet-tempered people taken to the edge. They scrutinize the small print on packages, wary of a second level of betrayal. Smeared print, ghost images. In the altered shelves, the ambient roar, in the plain and heartless fact of their decline, they try to work their way through the confusion.” (326)
Consumerism is revealed as it truly is: not as an unbreakable shield against the fear of death, but as the embodiment of death itself. This must be what Murray means when he says, “the difference (between shopping and death) is less marked than you think.” (38)
Consider the other novels we have read throughout this course. What role do possessions play in determining a character’s identity? (Jack has his purchases, his dark glasses; Invisible Man had his briefcase; Hazel, his car; etc…) What similarities can we draw? What differences?
In what other ways does consumerism function as a form of protection against death in the novel? (Consider Dylar as a prime example—Babette literally consumes the drug with the hope that it will eliminate her fear of death.) Does anything else in the novel function in a similar manner?
