Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - Judit Ágnes Kádár: 'Kleenex-View' and Cultural Devaluation: Merchandise as Ontology in Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985)
presents the spouses not as much as social beings, but rather in their psychological nature. Since morality and fantasy are of primary interest in the novel, comic qualities are especially emphasized. The tone of DeLillo's text is full of different types of humor, especially Black Humor and satire. However, neither one achieves absolute dominance. In his critical view of society he uses satire as a weapon, though he is aware of the fact that since no one is in the position any longer to judge without self-criticism, superiority disappears and the narrator can merely wander around the settings without any certainty to find a hierarchy of values. This feature would move the general tone from satire towards Black Humor; certain elements point in this direction, for instance the nihilistic black games such as Heinrich's chess party with the serial killer and the murder-case itself; the games with death such as Babette's drug-taking habits or Jack's choice of profession as a researcher of Hitler Studies; the stress on social absurdities such as people's disability and unwillingness to realize the impact of the media on them. Using Abádi-Nagy's distinction ( Válság ... 386-97), DeLillo's novel shows comic, 'Black Humorous' qualities in the -physical sphere (i.e. the strong concern with death and apocalyptic environmental pollution, fear and uncertainty); -ethical sphere (i.e. the writer's aim to shock and estrange from the absurdities of life lack superior and/or outsider position); -mental sphere (the superficial qualities become overemphasized with the loss of real values and causality, though the need of a firm center, a hardcore, still lives). As Robert Scholes claims regarding the symbolic function of snow in Donald Barthelme's City Life : "This snow-like fallout of brain damage is not just a reminder of the pollution of our physical atmosphere, it is the crust of phenomenal existence which has covered our mental landscape, cutting us off from the essence of our being, afflicting even the atoms (Scholes 116-7)." A closer examination of the text reveals the signs of the approaching apocalyptic situation and references to the true nature of the phenomenon. The cloud threatening Blacksmith and its people probably denotes not just surface dangers like the ones caused by problems with a machine, the food, fumes or toxic materials, but it 191
