Reality is the White Noise

                While reading White Noise, I have found Heinrich’s character to be the most interesting, and even likeable character in the book.  I have this reaction toward him because he gets straight to the point, he does not beat around the bush, and he is honest and quite realistic.  I find the other characters frustrating; they ignore his comments because they are afraid of the truth of what he says.  Heinrich is the only character who is willing to deal with issues head on, not passively. His approach may seem a little abrasive, but I like that he is willing to throw the issue out there instead of sweetening them up to make it easier to handle. 

Maybe the “white noise” of the book is the reality that everyone is ignoring.  Whenever Heinrich brings up a subject that makes the family uneasy, they quickly change the subject, they put it in the background as “white noise”:

‘The real issue is the kind of radiation that surrounds us every day.  Your radio, your TV, your microwave oven… forget spills, fallouts, leakages.  It’s the things around you in your own house that’ll get you sooner or later’…. ‘Is this what they teach in school today?’ Babette said.  What happened to civics, how a bill becomes a law?’ (166-68)

The rest of the passage continues with the entire family adding to this conversation that is off-topic.  They talk about rocks, math, history – nothing that has to do with the comments Heinrich just made because confronting the truth makes them too uneasy.

                The family does the exact same thing with the “airborne toxic event.”   A potentially very dangerous event is happening right outside of their house.  Babette even says to Jack that maybe they should be more concerned about the event, and he instead of listening, he talks her out of her concern, telling her “these things don’t happen in places like Blacksmith” (112).  They continue to ignore the situation, let it go on as “white noise” and instead talk about dinner and bills.  Heinrich later tells Jack the weather is about the change which means the “billowing black cloud” would be heading toward them, and what is Jack’s response?  He says “I’m the head of a department.  I don’t see myself fleeing an airborne toxic event” (115).  They ignore the situation until they decide they should probably go, not as if it is a life threatening situation, which it is.  I think this is Delillo’s critique of the desensitization of Americans: nothing seems serious, because things like “that” don’t happen to people like “us.”