White Noise and Postmodernism

There is not a clear and defined definition of postmodernism because of the concepts, characteristics and ideas within it. However, on some sites it is defined as a term that encompasses a wide-range of developments in philosophy, film, architecture, art, literature, and culture. It was originally a reaction to modernism, used to describe the different aspects of post WW2 literature. Started around 1940s, after the modernist era, and peaked around the 1960s and 1970s. In Postmodernism there are no absolute truths, only relative truths of each person or character. Postmodernism is "post" because it denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth, which will explain everything for everybody. In postmodernism understanding and interpretation is everything, saying that reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually (“Gengloss”).

Postmodernist Literature contains a broad range of concepts and ideas that include such factors as responses to modernism and its ideas, responses to technological advances and greater diversity of cultures that leads to cultural pluralism. One indication of a postmodern text is Patiche, when authors often combine multiple elements in the postmodern genre, like mixed media. Another one is metafiction, Writing about writing, often used to undermine the authority of the author and to advance stories in unique ways. Also, a similarity that seems common in all postmodern writing is paranoia (“Gengloss”).

White Noise is a postmodern text, even the opening chapters introduce three postmodern themes that recur throughout the novel. The power of appearances and imagery, the pervasiveness of consumerism, and the palpable but elusive presence of death in the world.

“Man’s guilt in history and in the tides of his own blood has been complicated by technology, the daily seeping falsehearted death.” This quote represents the theme of attacks on the advances of technology and growing consumerism. It’s trying to say that technology has blurred the lines between what we are and are not responsible for and it has also taken away, like Heinrich’s hairline, some essential part of our lives.

“Another postmodern sunset, rich in romantic imagery. Why try to describe it? It’s enough to say that everything in our field of vision seemed to exist in order to gather the light of this event.” In this quote it directly says postmodern. They are showing that they are another part of a postmodern world. In its never-ending repetition, making the pleasure of any individual experience impossible to convey. The sunset is spectacular and beautiful, but those qualities are diminished if its repeated everyday by other sunsets that are also spectacular and beautiful. The experience still matters, but the words that are left to describe it have been flattened out and emptied of any meaning by repetition. In the modern world, words can’t capture the sublime beauty, though romantic images can be invoked (“Sparknotes Editors”).

Works Citied

"Postmodernisn." Gengloss. Counterbalance, Web. 30 Nov 2009. .

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on White Noise.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 25 Nov. 2009.