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)

He is the orator of 'the many truth theory' and a voice of pessimistic relativity (skepticism). He dwells on the border of skepticism and nihilism, since he plays a GAME of chess with a murderer, a game of movements without personal communication. Here the Babel-allusion reaches one of its peaks: the paradox of language and game, or language as a game in a philosophical sense. It is facelessness in another form. A further example of social psychology is given here: a figure similar to the characters in the novels of Truman Capote and Franz Kafka follows a call and kills people without any specific reason. But similarly to Capote's way of investigating the motives of his murderers in the book entitled In Cold Blood, Heinrich lets us know the psychological drives behind their deeds claiming that the prisoner has heard 'pressuring voices' coming from the TV. A movie entitled Knight Moves presents murder-instinct in a similar way, too. I think chess, an organized system of rules that are based on causal relations, is the counter-symbol of the seemingly senseless murder-case lacking causality. Probably that is why they chose to play it. Moreover, on Heinrich's side it provides him with a sense of order as opposed to the chaotic nature of the surrounding world. Heinrich's reasoning seems to me a bit too philosophical for a teenager. Nevertheless, it is not the only example in the novel, where children present more wisdom than their parents. Denise gets superior to, or at least morally stronger than Babette in the beginning of the chapter, too. The way adults seem to formulate their perceptions into concepts about the reality that surrounds them seems to be significantly manipulated and many times helplessly confused. Without noticing it we are introduced to the other supplier of physical data and mass consciousness: the TV. The manipulation strategies mentioned earlier in the supermarket-section work also through mass media, where one cannot get reality but only its screened vision. Referring back to the above chart one can see that among the possible escapes TV, i.e. watching stories happening always to others, believing all and sometimes mixing it up with reality, seems to be the everyday devaluing counterpart of the notion 'we fict'. Today more and more people are aware of the negative, controlling power of the media: still we keep watching and listening to them. DeLillo provides an explanation in the novel: "Media is a 197