Black Humor, Parody, And Fragmentation

Recognized as one of the finest postmodern novelists and most astute social critics of contemporary American life,Don DeLillo has published altogether 15 novels, one novella,6 plays,a lot of short stories,essays and so on since his publication of Americana in 1971 till now.Among all his works,his masterpiece White Noise has caught greater attention than any other.While much of the criticism on this novel has focused on DeLillo's relationship to postmodern American culture,there is no comprehensive discussion of the postmodern narrative features that well suit the author's postmodern concern.Through close readings of White Noise and discussions of its postmodern narrative characteristics,this thesis otters a significant addition to current criticism on this novel.My thesis consists of five chapters besides introduction and conclusion.The introduction part gives a general survey of Don DeLillo's life,works and a brief literary review.Then the thesis begins with a chapter that introduces the tide of postmodernism,focusing on the origin and emergence of postmodernism,the typical postmodern American fiction and the main characteristics of them.Trying to give a panorama of the contemporary life in America,the second chapter displays the postmodern American society portrayed in White Noise in which mass media, technology,and the concept of death are especially focused on.The third chapter deals with a very important postmodern technique,black humor,in White Noise.DeLillo employs black humor to expose the absurdity and chaos of the society which are caused largely by mass media and advanced technology.In this way,a dark sense of humor is subtly presented as a way of criticizing and satirizing a postmodern society as he describes in the novel.Chapter Four explores another important feature of postmodernist writing,parody,in the novel.Parody is not merely used in postmodernist writings but parody in postmodernist writing differs from parody in modernist writing in the sense that in postmodernist parody,the comic effect and critically ironical function are stressed at the same time.In this chapter,DeLillo's parody of consumer culture,parody of disaster movie,and parody of detective story in the novel are discussed and analyzed.In the play of parody,the writer suggests the most serious problems of the contemporary society.Chapter Five examines fragmentation,another important feature of postmodern fiction,in White Noise.Just like parody,fragmentation,as a writing technique,is also not merely adopted in postmodernist writings because modernism also emphasizes on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives,and random-seeming collages of different materials. However,postmodern fragmentation differs from modern fragmentation in the sense that while many modernist writers treat fragmentation as something tragic and try to achieve unity,coherence,and meaning by fragments,postmodernist writers do not claim that unity,meaning and coherence can be pursued and they just play with fragmentation.In White Noise,through the fragmentation of language,incoherent plot and the technique of collage,the wholeness and completion of the novel are interrupted.With fragmentation as his narrative technique,DeLillo successfully turns the whole structure and language of his novel into a huge metaphor for the media and technology saturated post-industrial America.The last part is the conclusion.Based on the analysis above,it is easily concluded that White Noise is a novel which not only touches upon typical aspects of a postmodern society such as mass media,advanced technology,and people's particular fear of death,but also displays distinct postmodernist narrative techniques such as black humor,parody and fragmentation.In addition,DeLillo's unique position as a writer in contemporary American society is evaluated in this part.In his whole writing career,DeLillo is a thoughtful social and cultural critic.Though,as a writer,he cannot offer any suggestion to current social problems,it is enough for him to demonstrate a dystopia with high artistic techniques,without offering a utopia to replace it.