The Airborne Toxic Event

DeLillo’s novel White Noise, characters are often mentally drawn towards events and thoughts of disaster. I myself have witnessed and experienced disastrous events that have shaped my gratitude toward life. When reflecting on the calamities that I have been apart of, I feel grateful to be alive. Since life can be predictable and often boring, disaster makes one feel alive because it validates our existence by allowing us to imagine our destruction and then rejoice in our reality. On a cool Sunday morning in October 2012, the…

imprisoned in a camp. With the exception of Jack fearing for his life and Steffie refusing to take off her protective mask, nobody appears to be taking the Event seriously once they believe they are safe. In fact, when they first reach Iron City, a man talks to the family about how he is upset not only of the events he went through but additionally because the media is not there to cover it: “‘Don’t those people know what we’ve been through...Are they telling us it was inconspicuous, it was…

While White Noise does not state directly how to change ravenous consumption, it allows the possibilities for readers to think about issues such as the impact of human technology on natural surrounds, a constant need for simulation, and how humans fear of events that occur naturally and universally. The Airborne Toxic Event is the plot point from White Noise that has created the most lasting impact. Its importance to the story is demonstrated by its isolation from the other parts of a novel…

is death, and with death, there is a rebirth. Jack learns that not everything you say or do should be acted on. Paragraph 3: Confrontation: finally arriving at an uncomfortable feeling of no longer fearing death but accepting it. In the second half of the novel, a toxic airborne event occurs when a derailed tank car spills gas and emits a black mass of smoke into the air. The gas is known as Nyodene D, which causes skin irritation and sweaty palms in humans. As everyone packs their belongings…

because it connected to Hitler” (DePietro 71) As with White Noise, Jack Gladney would probably have said the exact same thing when asked about Hitler, “simply because it connected to Hitler.” While reading the novel, there are parts where you wonder if Jack thinks about how he’s going about and perceiving things. Drawing attention to his beloved Mein Kamph, Jack keeps it close as if it were his life support, and without it he’d fall to the wrath of death. He uses it to remind him of his false…

"It is surely possible to be awed by the thing that threatens your life, to see it as a cosmic force, so much larger than yourself, more powerful, created by elemental willful rhythms" (124). The man-made phenomena being described here is the black cloud that creates the airborne toxic event. The characters in the novel are in the presence of something much larger than them, something that could destroy them in the cruelest ways possible. This is not only humbling, but brings about a feeling of…

Christian Martinez Professor Ingrid Jayne English 205 July 25, 2016 Living a Simulated Life in White Noise Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise is an outsider’s look inside small town America through the eyes and ears of its first person narrator Jack Gladney. Jack is a middle-class, middle-aged white male academic, who basks in the achievement of having created a department of Hitler Studies. He lives with his current wife, Babette, and an assortment of children from their previous marriages.…

Throughout White Noise DeLillo makes a point of illustrating Blacksmith’s dependency on media. One of the few places the Gladney family congregates is in front of the television, whether it be for Babette’s weekly family viewings or because of some significant event. If they are not in front of the set, then they are tuned in to the radio. This in itself is not inherently detrimental: It leads to rare family time and keeps them informed about the world. However, the news broadcasts and media…

Manufacturing of Cd-Te solar cells can cause occupational health risks because cadmium compounds are used in both liquid and powdered form, there is a possibility by chance they get isolated. The occupational health hazards accessible by Cd and Te compounds in various production steps vary with the compounds' toxicities, their physical state, and the way of exposure. No clinical data are available on human health effects associated with exposure to Cd Te. Occupational Safety and Health…

preferring to leave the novel in an open state, this close relationship between life, death, and white noise might mean that death lingers menacingly in the background of our lives, or it might mean that death, as an inextricable part of life, represents something we shouldn’t be afraid of. Both attitudes seem supported by the novel, which presents white noise—and the stronger, yet more elusive strain of sound Jack detects behind that white noise—as simultaneously a thing of dread and of…