Questioning About Peace

Underworld is an overall review of the second half of the twentieth century America on the approaching millennium by Don DeLillo.It records every whit of the underground and civilian history of the United States through the fragmented depiction of dozens of people,effectively revealing the various evils hiding in the coat of peace and the survival predicaments of modern people in society filled with sickness.Violence is an ever-lasting theme in Don DeLillo’s novels.However,in Underworld,DeLillo’s concern not only goes to the bloody visible violence,but more to the startling invisible violence hidden under the legendary American modern civilization.With the help of Johan Galtung’s violence theory in which he categorizes violence as structural violence,cultural violence and direct violence,the author will make a thorough exploration of the social phenomenon of pervasive violence,social roots and manifestations of violence reflected in Underworld.Civilians on the verge of power suffer unprovoked fear and become paranoid;poverty,disease and death are the offbeat existence in the New York halo;the surreal deformity in “white space” is strongly concealed.“Inequality” is the questioning about the American systems and social structure.At the same time,the ethnic stigma borne by the black boy Cotter and Big Sims across nearly half a century is the questioning about America’s cultural racism;the disregard and denial of Matt and Eric on nuclear research disastrous consequences and Edgar’s unscrupulous imprisonment physically and mentally to his assistant Clyde are the questionings about American culture of extreme individualism.During the war time,Chuck changed from a perpetrator to a victim while the aspiring young Lewis transformed from the victim into a cold-blooded ruthless perpetrator.The change of identity deeply reveals the multiple nature of the war;the boundary of reality and fiction of individual violence has long been blurred with shooting,copycat crimes and the like intensified under the support of technology.Through the argument,it obtains a conclusion that Underworld reflects the inner division of civilians and systems,the alienation of core value,deconstructing the myths of American nationhood which for hundreds of years in the disguise of liberty,democracy,equality and justice.As all the violence dimensions are correlated,violence will never cease,and peace can only be a faraway dream.The hidden side ofAmerican society,a reality of the nation that is marginalized,broken,endangered,and unseen,is uncovered.