The Failure of Technology in White Noise by Don Delillo A particularly unfortunate feature of modern society is our futile attempt to use technology to immunize us against the fear of death. The failure of technology in this regard is the overall topic of Don Delillo's book White Noise. Throughout this novel, technology is depicted as the ominous messenger of our common destiny, a growing sense of fear over the loss of control over our lives and the approach of inevitable death despite technology's empty promises. In this essay I will examine Delillo's depiction of technology and its role in our society. The title of Delillo's book, White Noise, recalls electronic static of the kind encountered on television when a station turns off. air. But I think white noise can also refer to the indiscriminate flow of information we are exposed to on a daily basis in our modern society, what ultimately destroys the immediacy of real life. If you see enough people killed on television, enough mangled bodies in distorted cars, enough violence, destruction and desperation in the newspapers, you become numb. In a way, I think this is White Noise. Have you seen those devices they sell for insomniacs? They are white noise generators intended to put us to sleep. White noise is sound transmitted indiscriminately at all frequencies, and this is what Delillo implies that television and modern media are doing to us today. The indiscriminate flow of information is not making our society more aware; rather, it is putting us all to sleep. White Noise is a book haunted by death at the hands of our own technology. The protagonist is a middle-aged man who is the president of a department in Hitler......medium of paper......a novel in which the products on the supermarket shelves are quietly rearranged, casting a sense of shock and panic among consumers (i.e. the masses) until they are able to adapt to the new system. After surviving the initial traumatic change, we see shoppers quickly resume their senseless lives on the road to death, comfortably numb and complacent. This is a sad indictment of what life in this twentieth century represents for our media- and technology-manipulated American society. Delillo's analysis implies, therefore, that security can only be found in conformity and a dead life dictated by others. Furthermore, life is truly experienced to its fullest only in the random moments when the “white noise” stops and becomes momentarily silent, only to quickly arise and embrace us once again in its death grip. Works Cited: DeLillo, Don. White noise. London: Picador, 1986.