Our world has become truly infinite, or rather exponential by means of images. It is caught up in a mad pursuit of images, in an ever greater fascination which is only accentuated by video and digital images. We have thus come to the paradox that these images describe the equal impossibility of the real and the imaginary. -Jean Baudrillard, “The Evil Demon of Images and the Precession of Simulacra”.

The world of Don DeLillo's White Noise is a world composed completely of images. All things and, ultimately, all concepts exist as image: aesthetized, free-floating, hyper-real. In a world permeated by advertising and mass media, the experience of images and the experience of “reality” become inseparable. Ultimately, they become reliant upon each other for their authenticity: reality and images imbue each other with meaning. As images become increasingly divorced from their original facticity they are free to continuously reproduce, each image reinforcing the others until a complex system of perpetual interdependency is created in order to produce a sense of “authenticity” that is ultimately circular rather than grounded in any original. In this way, the images of White Noise function as simulacra. However, despite the complex system of “authenticity” production that permeates the text, its goal is never fully realized. Rather than being immersed completely under this network of ungrounded signs and accepting its special construction of “truth,” the novel's protagonist, Jack Gladney, is still cognizant of the ultimate emptiness of his world and he still feels a deep nostalgia for a period of unmediated reality.

Conversely, his colleague Murray Siskind adopts a cynical posture towards his reality: he is still aware of the operation of the system of simulacrum but accepts the inevitability of its existence. Rather than fighting this change in reality or allowing himself to be fully swallowed up by it, Siskind makes commentary and a career on the basis of his circumstances. Finally, there is Willie Mink, the manufacturer and avid consumer of Dylar: he is pure product of the new system of simulacrum, utterly unable to grasp any gap between image and reality or to conceive of a time in the past or future in which such a gap could exist. In this essay, I will consider both DeLillo's use of images as a method of exploring the system of simulacrum that dominates his text and his use of characters at various levels of insight as sites of investigation into the experience of this system. Ultimately I will argue that DeLillo's purpose in White Noise is to critique the increased dominance of this system of simulacrum even as he recognizes the impossibility of escape from it, to “communicate...a warning about the loss of reality through representation” (Keesey, 149). Like Siskind, his approach to this condition is dryly cynical; however, his text also creates a sense of nostalgia in the reader much like that experienced by Jack Gladney. Immersed in the madness of the world of White Noise, the reader is aware of the idea of unmediated reality only through its absence: like Gladney, Siskind, and Mink one is able to conceive of such a state only as a departed reality that one can mourn, mock or forget but never recover.

For Jack Gladney, the pain of the loss of reality is experienced most deeply in the experience of his “death”:

You are said to be dying and yet are separate from the dying, can ponder it at your leisure, literally see on the X-ray photograph or computer screen the horrible alien logic of it all. It is when death is rendered graphically, is televised so to speak, that you sense an eerie separation between your condition and yourself. A network of symbols has been introduced, an entire awesome technology wrested from the gods. It makes you feel like a stranger in your own dying. (142)

Despite the intensity of Gladney's fear of death, the separation from any direct experience of it is ultimately more frightening. However, the above comment suggests that this disconnected experience of death is something that has been thrust upon him by a medical establishment that glories in esoteric language and practices. However, there are numerous levels to Gladney's disconnect, many of which are present before the medicalization of his death. Predating this extreme experience of being “a stranger in your own dying,” there is the separation cause by images and the experience of images: Gladney refers to the cloud of the Airborne Toxic Event as a “national promotion for death, a multi-million dollar campaign backed by radio spots, heavy print and billboard, TV saturation” (158). The connection with advertising is an especially interesting one. Having the Airborne Toxic Event exist not only as image but as advertisement highlights the ultimate emptiness of the particular image. It both speaks of death and says nothing about it: as pure image it is incapable of allowing depth or meaning. The synthesis of all image and communication into the pure image of advertising is offered by Baudrillard as a prime example of the triumph of the system of simulacrum:

[W]hat we are experiencing is the absorption of all virtual modes of expression into that of advertising. All original cultural forms, all determined languages are absorbed in advertising because it has no depth, it is instantaneous and instantly forgotten. Triumph of superficial form, of the lowest common denominator of all signfication, degree zero of meaning, triumph of entropy over all possible trope....This unarticulated, instantaneous form, without a past, without a future, without the possibility of metamorphosis has power over all others. (Baudrillard,

The cloud as an ad for death represents the ability of the system of simulacrum to consume even the most important and deep concepts.

The billowing cloud does not exist without precedent, either. Preceding the Airborne Toxic Event there are earlier experiences with images of death that make Gladney's comments about the cloud possible. Gathered around the television set as though in perverse imitation of the wholesome 1950's family gathered around Ed Sullivan, the Gladney's are enraptured by images of death and destruction: “We were otherwise silent, watching the houses slide into the ocean, whole villages crackle and ignite in a mass of advancing lava. Every disaster made us wish for more, for something bigger, grander, more sweeping” (64). Discussing his experience with disaster footage with a colleague, the colleague reassures him that his fascination is completely normal because “[f]or most people there are only two places in the world. Where they live and their TV set. If a thing happens on television, we have every right to find it fascinating, whatever it is” (66).

Ultimately, then, the experience of the Airborne Toxic Event as pure image is made possible by earlier experiences of images as the only true bearers of reality. It is this role of image as creator of authenticity that makes the presence of cameras at the Airborne Toxic Event so important. Absence from images and their creators is equated to expulsion from society (the site of meaning) altogether:

We are quarantined. We are like lepers in medieval times. They won't let us out of here. They leave food at the foot of the stairs and tiptoe away to safety. This is the most terrifying time of our lives... Isn't fear news? (162)

As though this almost religious attachment to images were not enough, after concluding his fiery speech the speaker turns to Gladney and confesses to a strong sense of deja vu. The camera crews are no longer necessary as creators of mediating imagery, now reality itself has become an image. Therefore, the loss of connection that Gladney feels regarding his death is the result of a far more extensive network of images. Additionally, Gladney is partially responsible for his increased immersion into the network of symbols. After being told that he is the “sum total of your data” (141), after being given the computer print-out of his own death, Gladney lets this “fact” define him. The idea of his existence as that of a “dying man” borders on the absurd as it is consistently suggested that he will die at about the same time that he always would have. He is a “dying man” only insofar as we are all dying men. His fear is of death, not of premature death. Here again his attachment to technology and to the information produced by it betrays a responsibility for his own empty position. As Siskind tells him, technology was invented to “conceal the terrible secret of our decaying bodies” (285). However, technology has failed him and the illusion is incomplete. Gladney is now left with two methods of escape: to reestablish a concrete connection with his own dying (an essential impossibility in this world of images) or to move so deeply into the separation from it that the fear disappears completely (this is the promise of Dylar). But Jack's fate, as mentioned above, is to be suspended between the two options, ultimately unable to fulfill either.

The Airborne Toxic Event and its fallout is not the first time that Gladney has experienced this pattern of constructing a mediating experience and then eventually finding it empty. Rather, it has been a defining part of much of his adult existence. Gladney's identity as academic and particularly his role as founder of Hitler Studies, points out his own role in the creation of the network of images that now traps him. This is an important point: Baudrillard's nightmare of perpetual and pervasive simulacra is only made possible through a cultural move towards such an environment. Naturally, this cultural move is reliant upon the movement of individuals. The decision to abandon reality is a collective one, but collective decisions are reliant upon a series of individual decisions. For Gladney, choosing to appropriate the image of Hitler as the sign of his own identity, to mediate himself through it, is a decision to enter into the system of simulacrum's method of constructing authenticity in an attempt to exploit it to his own advantage. Mark Conroy comments on both Gladney and Siskind's use of their chosen figures of study: “Both are making their careers by attaching themselves, as critics are wont to do, to some eminent figure, whose glory they parasitically procure” (Conroy, 154). They achieve a certain charisma by proxy. Eventually, the two personalities (appropriator and appropriatee) become dependent on one another for their own authority. As Siskind tells Gladney:

Nobody on the faculty of any college or university in this part of the country can so much as utter the word Hitler without a nod in your direction, literally or metaphorically. This is the center, the unquestioned source. He is now your Hitler, Gladney's Hitler. (11)

The historical Hitler becomes almost completely obscured by Jack's interpretations; but, Jack's authority is only confirmed by appealing to Hitler. The have become perpetually reliant upon one another. Siskind's comments regarding “the center, the unquestioned source” become deeply ironic in a system that has no grounding. However, while Gladney manages to locate himself within this system of simulacrum and to gain academic success through doing so, it is ultimately unfulfilling and he is unable to convince himself of the illusion of authority that he presents so strongly to others. He doesn't speak German nor use his real name, all he has to draw on is the charisma that he siphons from his object of study, his ability to enthrall a crowd with the image of himself and his subject. He refers to his constructed name (J.A.K. Gladney) as “a tag I wore like a borrowed suit” (16), a continuation of the technique of appropriation that defines his whole career. Ultimately he becomes “the false character that follows the name around” (17).

Like Gladney, Siskind also exits within this perpetually referential system, but instead of Murray's nostalgia he provides a cynically witty approach to his situation. While Gladney wants to take part in the system of simulacrum only insofar as it advances his career, Siskind fully admits to the degree that it has permeated all of life. Rather than appropriating one subject as justification for his authority, he borrows from the entirety of cultural subjects. All cultural products are to Siskind what Hitler is to Gladney. In many ways, Siskind's voice appears to align itself with DeLillo's own. Unlike Gladney, Siskind does not have moments at which he feels that he has escaped the postmodern flow. Additionally, his own style of critique seems similar to DeLillo's own. At the site of the “most photographed barn in America,” Siskind launches into commentary: “Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn...They are taking pictures of taking pictures...We can't get outside of the aura. We're here, we're now” (12-13). DeLillo's creation of the concept of the barn (and similar concepts such as SIMUVAC) show much of the same wit and knowingness that puncutates Siskind's commentary upon it. The very creation of White Noise is a testament to DeLillo's own cynical realization of the preponderance of simulacrum. There is, however, an important difference. DeLillo's text still holds and creates Gladney's nostalgia even as it denies a possibility of reprieve; Siskind, however, fully replaces this nostalgia with exploitation and opportunism. Where Gladney sees emptiness, Siskind sees the possibility of commentary, of the furtherance of his position. It is because of this attitude that John Duvall argues that Siskind is the “true villain of White Noise.” (443) After Gladney's exposure to the Airborne Toxic Event, Siskind becomes an increasingly negative presence, using his insight to manipulate. It is Siskind who first puts Gladney on the path to murder:

Nothingness is staring you in the face. Utter and permanent oblivion. You will

cease to be. To be, Jack. The dier accepts this and dies. The killer, in theory, attempts to defeat his own death by killing others. He buys time, he buys life. Watch others squirm. See the blood trickle in the dust...To speak about this is not to do public relations for murder. We're two academics in an intellectual environment. It's our duty to examine currents of thought, investigate the meaning of human behavior. But think how exciting, to come out a winner in a deathly struggle, to watch the bastard bleed. (291)

Siskind cleverly presents Gladney with a compelling image, a myth to appropriate and make his own just as he did with Hitler (who, ultimately, is himself just a compelling image). Still clinging to the possibility of meaningful connection between image and reality, Gladney is far more affected by the myth than Siskind would be. Siskind's own absurd interjections of “in theory” and “we're two academics” distance him from the ideas he presents, testifying to his well-honed ability to stand outside the objects of his contemplation. However, he simultaneously recognizes Gladney's inability to truly make this distinction as the final sentence playfully mirrors Gladney's own more sincere thoughts on the matter. As Duvall argues, Siskind attempts to “seduce...Jack into the postmodern flow...[E]veryone shall enter the postmodern flow - everyone except Murray, who will remain distanced precisely in order to plot, interpret and control.” (Duvall, 448) Siskind succeeds not only in seducing Jack but in appropriating him as cultural object as well. Just like Elvis and the most-photographed barn in America, Gladney's life becomes an image that Siskind can make his own. Just as one cannot see the barn for the signs, just as one cannot see Hitler except through Gladney's contributions to him, so Gladney cannot see himself because of the buzz, the white noise of Siskind's commentary about him. Gladney may physically attempt to kill Mink, but Siskind is also a murderer of sorts: he kills what is left of Gladney's identity and he prompts the attempted murder of Mink through his presentation of the pure image, the mythology of killing.

Finally, there is the rather extraordinary figure of Mink himself. Mink, unlike Gladney or Siskind, exists with no self-insight at all into his position or his role in the network of simulacrum. All boundaries between representation and reality have been shattered to the point at which words and reality become inseparable. When the reader finally encounters him in the flesh, he seems the very image of the simulacrum: a pure image of the condition itself, an advertisement for it. “He gobbled more pills, flung others down the front of his Budweiser shorts...There were cracked Dylar tablets all over the fire-resistant carpet. Trod upon, stomped. He tossed some tablets at the screen. The set had a walnut veneer with silvery hardware. The picture rolled badly.” (309) An almost exclusively passive figure, he becomes an object of pure consumption, permeation. He is the ultimate consumer: his life defined entirely by the ingestion of pills, the experience of images. Approaching him, Gladney seems to become more and more like him, more enveloped in the postmodern flow: “Things glowed, a secret life rising out of them. Water struck the roof in elongated orbs, splashing drams. I knew for the first time what rain really was. I knew what wet was...Great stuff everywhere, racing through the room, racing slowly. A richness, a density. I believed everything” (310). Ironically, it is at the moment that Gladney feels that he has come closer to true reality that he is actually closer to the realm of the pure image than he has ever been before. He is bombarded with information as images, just as Mink is by the television set and by Gladney's words. His descriptions of a “secret life” and “elongated orbs, splashing drams” do not evoke the experience of reality but rather the hyper-reality of images. The body of Mink, which has always flashed about in Jack's brain as “[g]ray-bodied, staticky, unfinished” (241), represents the triumph of meaningless images, of white noise, of static. It is this rolling, gray-bodied image that has fascinated Gladney just as the television set fascinates Mink. For Gladney, when he thought of Mink “[t]he picture wobbled and rolled, the edges of his body filled with random distortion” (241).

Even the attempted murder of Mink provides no relief from the triumph of the pure image but only lends it increased power. As Leonard Wilcox notes, it is not actions but words (which, in the world of Dylar, are themselves images) that dominates the passage:

The dominant impression of Gladney's account, in fact, is wordiness, a proliferation of words. Words themselves loom up in hyperpresent materiality; when he shoots Mink, not sound so much as words echo around the room: "I fired the gun, the weapon, the firearm, the automatic." (Wilcox, 107)

In the end, Gladney, Siskind and Mink all come to rather dire ends. Gladney's attempt to escape the network of simulacrum ends in a greater immersion into pure image, the inescapability of which becomes painfully apparent by the time that even the nuns he encounters admit that they only exist as empty symbols, ungrounded, pure images. Siskind manages to maintain the most rational approach to his postmodern circumstances, but the maintenance of this attitude requires such a pervasive cynicism that he ultimately becomes morally bankrupt. Finally, Mink exists as the most pitiful character of all: Dylar has failed him and now the totality of his person is enslaved to the postmodern flow. If, in fact, all plots do move deathward as Gladney asserts with some uncertainty, then the conclusion of White Noise would seem a prime example. For each character there is a death, a loss: of hope, of morals, of personhood. Privy to the experiences of all of these men, the reader's ultimate end seems affected by all three personalities. DeLillo's wit and the presence of more insightful figures such as Gladney and Siskind save the reader from any possibility of emerging as Mink. However, Mink does serve as a sort of symbol for the general slip of the world into a mire of simulacrum networks. He is an image of what society itself may come to in a world of images. Siskind's cruelty and Gladney's ultimate naivëty isolate the reader from a full identification with either, but they both seem essential in building any final impression of the text. DeLillo's extensive and careful treatments of Gladney's angst and nostalgia for a more grounded past encourage a similar nostalgia in the reader. Yet the presence of Siskind and the conclusion of the text both warn against any simplistic attempts to regain that past or escape knowledge of the postmodern situation. In the end, the reader will always have some choice in how to react to the world of White Noise and the images and story that DeLillo presents. However, much in the fashion of the text itself, that reaction is necessarily mediated through the characters which define, construct and even deconstruct that world.