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Sarcasm and Displacement of the Supermarkets in White Noise
Throughout the novel White Noise, Don DeLillo uses dark and biting humor and subtle displacement to contrast the harsh reality of his characters lives.The sarcasm exists in the idea that the supermarkets help the characters cope with the world around them.The displacement that DeLillo implies is the disillusion and disconnection of characters to each other.The disconnectedness of Jack, his family, and Wilder help set the unique theme and understanding of the novel throughout the supermarket scenes. The humor also sets the tone for the novel, allowing the readers to understand and engage in topics such as adultery, death and Nazism. From cover to cover, DeLillo uses irony and displacement, through the supermarket, to juxtapose the anxieties that surround his characters.
Television, drugs, relationships, tabloids and supermarkets are icons of postmodern life that help subdue the reality around Jack and his friends and family. All these aspects offer a sense of control and immorality in a world full of fears and chaos.Of these, supermarkets are inevitably essential to understanding the novel as a whole.
DeLillo uses all of these random aspects of everyday life, especially supermarkets to poke fun at the complexity of the Gladney family life. The family engages in ritual trips to the grocery store where they purchase items for their material worth and flavored appeal.When Jack encounters Murray at the store one of thefirst things he notices is Murray's choice of product in his cart. "His basket held generic food and drink, non brand items in plain white packages with simple labeling (DeLillo, 18)." Both Jack and Babette, his current wife, find Murray's purchases to be absurd. This is an example of DeLillo's biting humor. DeLillo uses Murray's items to point out that something bland and colorless is avant-garde and futuristic. It&a…