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)

also refers to "something deeper, finer-grained, more closely woven into the basic state of things (WN 35);" so to speak the firm center of their lives, too. Words like 'irritation' or 'mask' and events like the teachers' brain confusion and the investigators' enlisted uncertaintyfactors suggest the suspicion that some really big trouble is to come. The pollution of the environment-, language- and mind theme forms a complex thematic unit here. After this introductory paragraph we are again with the Gladneys and Murray Siskind at the Supermarket, an archetypal image, a 'sacrificial temple' of our age. At this image we have to stop for a moment and see what SUPERMARKET embodies and represents. An analyst of the "Mechanization and Standardization in America" (Müller-Freienfels 272-9) differentiated between European and American lifestyles. He claims that while the Old World culture focuses on the organic, artistic and intellectual aspects, Americans are much more concerned about the magnitude in values, the machinemade world, and technique is not a means only but also a purpose for them. While Europeans are interested in distance, uniqueness and originality, their New World fellows deal mainly with type, similarity and agreement in all dimensions of life (274). This quoted distinction lies at the roots of American pragmatic thinking and behavior and get symbolized in the term 'Supermarket Culture'. DeLillo stresses the spiritual surrender of the 'sensus communis' to these ideas and Supermarket stands for them: "We moved together into the ultra-cool interior (WN 35);" the sliding door that keeps energy in and after the last purchase point where "breath mints and nasal inhalers" are sold, people get out of the womb-like (spiritual) 'incubator' that prepares them for death, having been consumed by the system in which they are to purchase happiness by the act of shopping, obtaining material goods; finally they are at the parking lot, another typical symbol of their lifestyle. I think the KITCHEN is another important location of the Gladneys' life since it is a center of information exchange in the family and between the family and the outside world. The telephone is located here and "a computer-generated voice is asking a marketing survey aimed at determining current levels of consumer desire (48)," implying the strong interdependence of information and consumer 192