Analysis Of Don Delillo 's White Noise

When the author’s father passed away, Wes was in shock, he said, “everything around you vanishes, all you hear is wind filling your ear, all you feel is the wind on your skin.... Your mind all but empties.” (Moore, 14) He couldn’t think or do anything. He was lost.

Tobias Wolff’s short story, “That Room” is a very suspenseful story that has the reader on the edge of their seat while reading it. Suspense and excitement is created through the plot and theme of the story which are both developed through four main literary devices. In the story, the narrator is put into what is potentially a life or death situation and it is at this point that he becomes aware that one is never really in full control of his or her own life. Throughout this literary analysis I will discuss the plot and theme of the story in terms of how Wolff uses setting, tone, characterization, and symbolism to enhance both the theme and the plot.

Moving from a childlike bliss to an awakening of the world's prejudice, the author makes the words take on flesh. The story is made alive as she breathes life into a time that is unpleasant yet not void of hope. "The hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations" disappeared when they were told the cold hard `truth' of their fate that some white man had already decided for them.

In the nonfiction novel The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson uses Imagery, dark tone, and oxymorons to portray H. H. Holmes, whose point of view is half of the story, as the Devil incarnate: evil and subhuman.

The speaker shows his initial perception of death as gruesome and extremely unpleasant. As “the shrike pinned smaller birds on the tree’s black thorns…while some burned holes in the sky overhead.” Perillo deliberately uses imagery to reflect his frightful view on death, but clearly describing the “desiccated” state of the bird. The imagery invokes a sense of discomfort and disgust to the to the audience.

Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel” gives the reader a fascinating look into the life of Carlton Marrow, a teenage boy doomed to die in the mid nineteen-sixties, as told by his younger brother Frisco. From the very beginning the reader is aware that they reading Carlton’s final days, saying,”Here is Carlton several months before his death.” This sentence could be taken out of the story entirely and one could still predict Carlton would die within its pages. Firstly, Cunningham skillfully places ominous details leading up to the climax, such as, “It happened like this,” which causes the reader to question what ‘it’ is. Also it is apparent that although Carlton is being a typical teenage boy, one may observe that he is, indeed, a few years ahead of his time. “His eyes are bright as neon. Something in them tells me he can see the future, a ghost that hovers over everyone’s head.” (Cunningham 231). He is right at the front of the psychedelic revolution, taking hits of acid in the presence of his mother, smoking weed, and drinking secretly in the cemetery behind his house from which the name “White angel” is adapted.

Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black. (Larson

Automatically, the reader knows that serious issues are about to be discussed and that the outcome may not be positive. This novel challenges the material ideology discussed above. It does this by bringing the issues to the forefront and reporting on them in a fictitious yet realistic manner. The reader is not led to believe that the ending will be happy, he is supposed to expect the consider the harsh realities of the world throughout the piece.

Death is the undeniable force that compels people into extreme situations. The Demon in the Freezer, by Richard Preston, is a dystopian novel that focuses on smallpox and the eradication of the horrific disease. On the other hand, Lost Horizon, by James Hilton, is a utopian novel set on a surreal island where a perfect society is idealized. These two novels present a central theme about human nature; however, it is displayed in different ways as shown through the contrasting genres of books. The novels' use of conflict, as well as diction, tone, and mood; along with motifs, present the theme that the fear of death pushes people to extreme behaviors.

Here, author Truman Capote delves into the ramifications of “four shotgun blasts.” He begins with the obvious––the Clutter family is killed––but soon shifts his focus from the immediate consequences of these “somber explosions” to the metaphorical “fires of mistrust” that they spark within the people of Holcomb. Through his specific language (i.e., the words “blasts,” “explosions,” and “fires”), Capote conveys the violent and irrevocable havoc that the simple pulling of a trigger can wreak. Overnight, the entire town’s faith and sense of security is lost: neighbors have become strangers, and unlocked doors are now a thing of the past. What’s more, Capote foreshadows Dick and Perry’s eventual doom when he mentions that the shotgun ended six lives. However, he counteracts the grim reality of the events described with an almost dreamlike narrative, which ensures that his readers feel curiosity rather than dread at what is to come.

End Zone is a novel by Don DeLillo published in 1973. Gary Harkness is the main protagonist in this novel. He is a talented halfback at Logos College in West Texas. The understanding of this character helps in the development of one of the many themes in the novel, which forms the basis of the topic matter in this paper.

In The devil in the white city pages 385 through 388, Eric Larson depicts the trial of H.H Homles and the dangers of him. Larson supports this picture through diction and strong metaphores painting Homles as inhuman. Due to his malicious tone,Larson is writing with the intent to bring closure to his audiance of millenals wondering about the ChicGO fair.

To truly understand mental processes and behaviors of humans, and to write about and fabricate these behaviors in a realistic fictional manner, is truly an astonishing talent, one which is seldom found. Among this rare breed stands Tobias Wolff, Oxford and Stanford educated novelist and short story writer, who is revered as a great modern American writer because of his deep understanding of the human psyche and his ability to design characters so emotionally complex that their hearts beat within the pages of his work. Even without a particular unifying theme amongst his short stories, Wolff remains a pervasive figure in the realm of American literature. He does not need an overlying theme to integrate his short stories; Wolff’s powerful understanding of the human condition and his ability to give his characters pure vitality are enough to thrust him into the realm of literary greatness, where his stories will likely continue to thrive and prosper, even

Death is probably the most feared word in the English language. Its undesired uncertainty threatens society’s desire to believe that life never ends. Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise tells the bizarre story of how Jack Gladney and his family illustrate the postmodern ideas of religion, death, and popular culture. The theme of death’s influence over the character mentality, consumer lifestyle, and media manipulation is used often throughout DeLillo’s story.

“The world…is crowded, not necessarily with occupants and not at all with memorable experiences, but with happenings; it is a ceaseless flow of seductive trivialities which invoke neither reflection, nor choice but instant participation.” (Oakeshott) The idea of the lacking of realness is one of the major themes carried out throughout the novel White Noise by Don DeLillo, especially through the device of the television.