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)

net against reality, plus something that presents patterns for them to follow; 2. from the viewpoint of the 'establishment', powerful cliques controlling the masses with the help of media, popular arts serve the present existing system and provide a tranquilizer and artificially generated pleasures ("kitsch') smoothing away aggression of manin-the-street. Its mechanism is presented especially in the dialogues between Jack and Murray, for example in Chapter 11 when Murray compares the unifying, controlling and estranging power of ads and mass-producers of culture on kids and adults (WN 48). A Hungarian philosopher, Miklós Almási gives the deep understanding of this question (14, 97) and I think his ideas could help us realize more of the social background of the text. He also mentions an interesting phenomenon, which has something to do with the title of the novel and its first part, moreover the theme of Chapters 9, 10 and 11, namely that according to media-sociologists, since there are many channels to choose from on TV, yet people get almost the same watching any of them, people watch TV less attentively, while the media becomes the source of background noise, i.e. WHITE NOISE. He concludes that it is not an absolutely negative feature of modern life, since arts and media can serve purposes like relaxation as well. Goodheart agrees on this claiming in his essay entitled "Don DeLillo and the Cinematic Kitsch" that cinematic kitsch may even provide us with a necessary mode of relaxation in a life governed by anxieties and fears. The real danger perhaps lies in the tendency of kitsch to overtake everything, to consume all our experiences (126). I think that the writer calls attention to these dangers, too. His suspicion concerning "the networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies (WN 46)," the system altogether and the individual's necessary self-defense described ironically at the end of Chapter 10 (WN 46) comes from the idea, that to feel safe and comfortable in present society, one has to give in to the system including identity and independence as well, and become a number (just like in Jack Richardson's drama entitled "Gallows Humour" the despised idea of becoming a 'number-patch'). Jean-Fracois Lyotard connects the ownership and control of information with the relationship between state and society, also mentioning noise as a phrase for chaos: 200