The Figure in the Static: White Noise

Reassessing the Twentieth-Century Canon

“…Paranoia is a sequence of attempts by different groups to subvert what is perceived as the cultural verisimilitude, a set of representative conditions, often stereotyped or idealistic, which are in constant flux and shift, continually responding to different discourses. In this respect, different languages of cultural representation evolve when discourses are subjected to endless streams of information: the 'white noise' that DeLillo appropriates for his novel, which manifest themselves in 'such vulgarized forms are advertisements, tabloid headlines and bureaucratic euphemisms' (Saltzman 1994).…”