Jack's other Half

Jack’s Other Half

Throughout the novel White Noise, the character of Jack Gladney is portrayed of someone who is a white consumerist who takes the words of others into account far more than is necessary. He looks to others for affirmation and finds solace in the intimacy and honesty of his marriage, allowing him to set aside professional aspirations and focus on family. But the real Mr. Gladney seems to be a man who goes by J.A.K. and is rather different from Jack. While only the absence of a “c” distinguishes the two, it plays a vital role in the behaviors and actions performed by Mr. Gladney. Where Jack is uneasy around other intelligent people, J.A.K. exudes a confidence and aura that allows him to assert himself. By creating a new field of study, on Hitler, J.A.K. instantly becomes the lead expert in a subject matter that had not before existed, thus using the greatness of another to promote his own self-worth and renown.

What is interesting about Mr. Gladney lies in the inability to distinguish who the real man is: Jack or J.A.K. The beginning of the book gives the reader the impression that J.A.K. is only a work persona whom Jack becomes to deal with the demands of a highly intellectual profession that demands him be someone more than he is. But as the novel continues the lines between the real Jack and J.A.K. become somewhat muddled. The situation twists and it appears that Jack is the persona that is taken on when around his family, specifically Babette. Babette allows J.A.K. to slip out of the higher learning world and into a role of loving husband who can reveal anything to his wife.

A neat aspect of this distinguishing of 2 men within one character is the concept of simulacra that Jack and J.A.K. portray. The more in depth the novel gets into the characters of Jack and J.A.K., the more the lines and distinctions between the two blur. Once Jack’s fidelity with Babette is broken, it seems as if J.A.K. cannot seem to find a release in Jack anymore. Jack’s character has become compromised as it relied so heavily on Babette’s, whose was compromised, due to an affair, which was caused by a fear of death, which now leaves Jack in a state of disarray at the relationship before him. He is consumed with not only his own death but also the death that will allow him to embrace his own. Only after a near death experience could J.A.K. come out of his being and become Jack, who understands the trueness of death, and back into his normal routine.