Disaster or Device

I don't recall discussing the purpose of the underlying purpose of catastrophes presented in Tropic of Orange in class but I think it is worthy of some notice. The Tropic of Orange is clearly written in the postmodern form and because of this it is important to notice that the aspect of disaster isn't meant to be just another part of the story. White Noise is another novel that is easily comparable to The Tropic of Orange. If you take a look at the cover of White Noise you see a small image of the airborne toxic event; if you look at the cover of a Tropic of orange you see a portrait of an orange and a city in turmoil with planes flying above. This means that when these books where published it was decided that the best way to sell these books where to advertise the catastrophe that would take place within its pages.
Today's society, especially the American society has become a society of people who desire catastrophe. We seek it out in our films, music and literature. For example any person in American society could quite easily name at least 5 movies they have seen in which the world comes to an end in some way, if asked to simply name films in which a major disaster takes place; the list would be endless. It is interesting that both Tropic of Orange and White Noise devout a chapter of the novel to the issue of disasters. American society craves these catastrophes and postmodern authors have caught on to this crave.
When an author writes a novel he/she has an agenda of controversial issues or ideas that we as readers are expected to pick up on. These issues are embedded within the narrative and it is the hope of the author that readers will be able to pick up on them and consider their meanings and answers. Postmodern writers, (Yamashita included) producers and artist in general have learned to use the social craze for catastrophe as a device to attract readers. Often times the catastrophe such as the Harbor Freeway Accident, itself is not the most important aspect of the novel but rather the means of attracting readers to the bigger issues.