White Noise

A passage from Chapter 31 of White Noise reminded me of our in-class discussion of the most photographed barn in America.  While the family sits in their car, eating dinner, Denise discusses how mountains are always north of cities.  DeLillo wrote, “’Mountains are always upstate,’ Denise told her. ‘This way the snow melts as planned in the spring and flows downhill to the reservoirs near the cities, which are kept which are kept in the lower end of the state for exactly this reason.’”  This quote is significant because it demonstrates the way in which humans are disconnected from their environment.  This is highlighted by the use of the word “planned” as though humans had planned the environment rather than reacting to it.  In class we talked about how the aura of the barn is created by the sign that marks its importance and the people who stop to photograph it rather than anything special about the barn itself.  Although it is a different context, this is paralleled by Denise’s understanding of the role of mountains in city life.  Denise does not understand cites as being built around water supply, instead, she believes that the mountains arrange themselves around the city.  While this can be understood as simply as a child’s misunderstanding, Jack finds himself compelled by Denise’s explanation.  He wonders for a moment whether she is right.  His instincts push him in the other direction but he cannot think of any evidence to disprove her hypothesis.  This speaks to the type of world that they live in.  They exist in a realm of reproductions which disconnects them from any process of original production.  They lack the sense to tell them that people form cities in locations where they have access to resources.  DeLillo paints a picture of a family where they are so disconnected that they cannot figure out that the mountains are north of the city because people built the city south of the mountains.  This echoes DeLillo’s mention of the most photographed barn because they are the result of the same condition.  People photograph the barn because other people photograph the barn.  People live south of the mountains because other people live south of the mountains.  In the world that DeLillo creates, there is an eerie loss of the understanding of this somewhat simple concept.  DeLillo instead connects his characters to commodities and other effects of the commercialized world known as white noise.