Abstract

In Search For Identity In Postmodern America: The Case Of Don Delillo’s White Noise

Haneen Sabah Abid Al Ibrahim

Volume: 12 Issue: 3 2022

Abstract:

This paper will discuss the negative effects of consumerism on people in the postmodern American society in Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985). It will examine the threat of consumerism to humans through employing postmodern theories of Jean Baudrillard and Fredrick Jameson, and argues that consumerism physically and mentally affects individuals, depriving them of their individuality and assimilating them into a collective consumer society. On the physical level, people cannot avoid environmental and toxic dangers in their consumerist society, even white noises can harm them. Moreover, and most importantly, consumerism can cause people serious mental problems, leading people towards faulty perceptions about their own identities and their ultimate search for a hyper-reality to compensate for their individualistic loss.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.37648/ijrssh.v12i03.018

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