An Existentialist Interpretation Of Mankind’s Living State In White Noise

Don DeLillo,one of the most predominant American writers in the contemporary era,has created many novels concerning all kinds of topics.His novels do not enjoy a wide scope of readership on account of his complicated and changeable style until the publishing of White Noise which brought him to the attention of a much larger readership and also earned him much praise from critics.Through depicting the daily life of the Gladneys,the novel presents us with the social life and the living state of mankind in postmodern America.Based on some important notions of Existentialism,the thesis aims to explore the living state of the characters in White Noise,hoping to provide a new perspective in comprehending the novel.The thesis consists of three chapters besides introduction and conclusion.The introduction part offers a general survey of the author’s life,the novel’s main contents,literature review,Existentialism and the layout of the thesis.Based on the concept of"absurd",one of the core ideas of Existentialism,the first chapter examines the post-industrial American society created by DeLillo with some postmodern writing techniques and then points out the absurdity of people’s living environment.Through using Sartre’thoughts on the relationship between man and himself as well as the interrelationship,Chapter Two explores people’s existential state and finds that people are always anxious about their existence.Discussing the topic of death which appears throughout the novel,the last chapter analyzes people’s attitude towards death and indicates that people fail to get rid of their intensified fear of death.Then Heidegger’s view on death which can also be found in the novel is put forward as a new perspective for people to reconsider their existential predicament.The conclusion part points out that DeLillo’s exploration about the issues of life and death in the novel offers the instructive guidance about how to live a better life to human beings in the present day.