NOSTALGIA AND POSTMODERN SUBJECTIVITY IN WHITE NOISE BY DON DELILLO

Abstract

One of the crucial conflicts in DeLillo’s novels is the clash between the past and the future, leaving the present as hazy as the postmodern reality that comes into existence in his novels of the 20th century. In one of them, White Noise, nostalgia is highly prominent as a subjective reaction to the increasingly changing world of the present. Nostalgia, or a sentimental yearning for the past, is reflected in this novel in various aspects. Sometimes, it is addressed as a philosophical concept by characters such as Murray Siskind and regarded as an inherently highly subjective process in the postmodern world. At other times, it is implicitly reflected in different elements of the past, both on the collective, historical level (Hitler and Nazism) and on a smaller, local scale (time pre- and post-airborne toxic event). In each case, the past time is regarded as something highly desirable, as a symbolical safe haven or a shield associated with order and reliable systems of functioning, as opposed to the present, which is increasingly unreal, threatening, and rooted in the accelerating world of mass media. In each case, the subjective perspective of the past and the ensuing nostalgia stand opposed to the future order of Western civilization, whose outlines DeLillo drafts in this novel. This paper aims to highlight the conflict between nostalgia and the incoming threat of the future in this novel, as well as to regard White Noise as a nostalgia source within the context of DeLillo’s later novels.