Consumerism In Don Delillo's White Noise

Supermarkets are a familiar place for many; it is where we purchase items that fulfil our most primal needs and where we explore through products that catch our attention with their packaging or advertisements and almost never with their usefulness. There are aspects of the shopping experience that are hidden from the eyes of the average costumer but carry weight in the way in which they shape and guide our culture. The supermarket in Don Delillo’s White Noise is portrayed as a spiritual place where characters, like Jack Gladney and Murray, go to discover their identity and face their deepest fears. This is a critique of the culture of consumerism that measures the worth of an individual on the basis of their commodities and possessions. The …show more content…
Security against disasters, security against scarcity and security against death. The fear of not getting enough, of lacking in some area of life is ingrained in modern societies. Fear of not having enough is in close relation to the universal fear of death, a topic discussed greatly in White Noise. Material items are purchased from the supermarket and used to fill the void that fear of the unknown creates in the lives of human beings. People like to create superficial emotional bonds with their belongings as a form of insurance against death. Murray explains this concept to Babette in the supermarket when talking about Tibetans and their understanding of death “Tibetans try to see death for what it is. The end of attachment to things.”(38). By clinging to material commodities characters like Jack attempt to detract from the probability of the eventual death that awaits them. For Jack the act of purchasing something like food for his family grants him a sense of stability and completeness that distracts from his deep seated fear of death. He himself comes to this conclusions when observing the aftermath of a shopping trip he took with his wife