Death In David Hernandez's Supermarkets This Large

Lastly, DeLillo utilizes a consistent discussion of death in order to present a theme of death’s uncertainty throughout his novel. There are multiple points where DeLillo weaves underlying themes and straight up references to death throughout his novel. In places such as the airborne event, Murray’s advice to murder, and Jack’s attempt to kill Mr. Grey, DeLillo makes obvious references to death. However, in other places such as Heinrich’s receding hairline, Jack and Babette’s fear of death, and DeLillo’s perpetual image of the store, DeLillo places underlying themes which present death in a less straightforward manner. With the airborne event, DeLillo weaves a setting of death without directly stating it. DeLillo creates a situation where
DeLillo creates characters such as Jack and Babette in order to show how characters within the novel are impacted by death’s uncertainty. Lastly, DeLillo also shows death in an indirect fashion through his constant image of shopping. In David Hernandez’s poem, Supermarkets This Large, Hernandez explains DeLillo’s persistent use of consumerism to portray death. Hernandez writes that, “I hear someone say, Here we don’t die, we shop. / I hear someone reply, Once we stop denying death, / everything tastes better,” (“Supermarkets This Large”, 2008). As one article from The Guardian further describes, “...[objects of consumerism] also offer the novel’s narrator Jack Gladney something solid to cling onto, helping distract him from the thing he fears the most. They stop him thinking about death,” (“Don DeLillo's White Noise: A Novel Way of Dismantling Consumerist Excess”, 2016). One New York Times article even further drives this point, stating that, “Americans in ''White Noise'' do well to study their supermarkets closely, since death is edging nearer, anonymous, technical, ironically group-oriented,” (“Crowding Out Death”,
Just as this quote insists, DeLillo extensively explores death throughout his novel. Just as DeLillo explores death, one of the frequent ideas which DeLillo often explores throughout White Noise is the constant uncertainty surrounding death. A few examples which display DeLillo’s illustration of death’s uncertainty include Jack’s fear of death, Babette’s fear of death, and the consistent discussion of death throughout DeLillo’s novel. As we can see through each of these examples, DeLillo intends to illustrate how uncertain death seems to be despite its prevalence. Because of this theme’s presence within White Noise, we can see one larger theme which DeLillo intended to portray by writing his