Concepts Of Time In Don Delillo's 21^st-Century Novels

Since the publication of Americana in 1971,Don DeLillo(1934-)has published sixteen novels,one collection of short stories and seven plays and has received worldwide recognition as one of most important contemporary American writers.Since the late 1970s,DeLillo has received many awards including National Book Award,PEN/Faulkner Award,etc.In 2015,he received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.DeLillo's writing carries an insightful and consistent observation about contemporary American society,involving violence,terror and war in post-war America,as well as popular culture and daily life.In the past three decades,critics approach DeLillo's writing from multiple perspectives ranging from history and culture to religion and ethnics,etc.After 2000,DeLillo novels has demonstrated a minimal style with shorter sentences,fewer number of characters and more concise plotting.The most important transformation lies in the attempt to escape history into a state of untimeliness.This dissertation chooses four of DeLillo's novels written in the new century and closely examines the characteristics of the concept of time in each novel which individually contributes to one chapter.Some diachronic research will be found when a comparative study between DeLillo's 20th-century and 21st-century fiction is Recessary.As a weighty contemporary writer,DeLillo's writing reflects the transformation in the understanding of time in the new century.The four chapters comprise a thorough analysis of the typical mode of time in the four novels,namely,Cosmopolis,Falling Man,Point Omega and Zero K.Besides those postmodern notions of time,time in DeLillo's new-century novels is both representing and resisting reality by closely resonating with American politics,economy,media,technology,etc.The first chapter analyses capital and an accelerated time in Cosmopolis.Great emphasis is put on the influences global capital market has on the perception of time.Based on a close reading of the novel in discussion,this chapter explores the concept of time from three perspectives:individual and collective panic caused by accelerated time;the mechanism of the acceleration caused by the chaotic financial market;influences on subjectivity in the financial storm which every one has been wrapped in.Chapter Two analyses the disruption of time in Falling Man.Referring to theories of cultural memory,this chapter connects trauma caused by 9/11 attacks with multiple syndromes of disruption in time,especially in memory,to be specific.This chapter consists of three parts:multiplied implication of falling in the novel;Marandi's painting and other metaphors of time;disruption of time and the logic of rehabilitation in the narration.Chapter Three analyses media and slow time in Point Omega.Profound reflections over war,films and time are woven in the short novel.The exploration of the slow-time logic under the reflections are made up of three parts:modern war and cinema shares common characteristics in their virtual nature,which means the deprivation of reality;ghostly existence in Point Omega is the morbid twist between past and present;Virilio's concept of picnolespsy relates to the rehabilitation of time.The fourth chapter focuses on the study of suspended time and technology in Zero K.Cryonic technology aims to transcend biological death of human body and attempts to escape boundaries of time into ahistorical and timeless existence.This chapter contains three parts:bio-technology in this novel means redefining death;language encounters crisis for its deprivation of temporality implication;post-human future and suspended time.The dissertation explores the characteristics of time in DeLillo's 21St-century novels and the crucial elements which result in those characteristics.It is proved that capital,9/11 attacks,media and technology are taken as four key elements responasible for the transition from the acceleration to the slowing down of time.In Cosmopolis,global financial market merges the present into the future;in Falling Man,9/11 attacks threaten the consistence and completeness of memory and history;in Point Omega,deprivation of reality in the media age invokes reflections about the time of being slowed down;in Zero K,bio-technology suspends the end of life in the effort to realize immortality,which in essence is the suspending of time.