Metaphors In White Noise

White Noise: The Sounds That Keep us Sane
White Noise follows Jack, a man who teaches Hitler studies and has a house full of children between him and his wife. The first part of the book, Waves and Radiation, introduces Jack’s family and his strange friend, Murray. We gain insight into the daily lives of the various characters, the relationship Jack carries with each of his children and his wife, Babette.
While you’re reading the first part of the book, DeLillo gives you the sense that Jack is scared of death. He tells Babette that he hopes he will die first, says that all plots lead toward death during his lecture, wasn’t able to look away from the plane crash on tv, and just generally seems wary of death’s presence. It appears that Jack doesn’t think about the inevitability of death when there are distractions around him, such as the children, his work, the television, etc. This is because he’s surrounded by both metaphorical and actual white noise. White noise can be anything that distracts us from the anxiety that comes with life. Without white noise, the world around us is bone-chillingly quiet- something that can drive even the healthiest mind into insanity. Jack is a quiet man, one who wants to conform to the standards he himself has set for
Murray asks “What was the barn like before it was photographed? What did it look like, how was it different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can’t answer these questions because we’ve read the signs, seen other people snapping the pictures. We can’t get outside the aura. We’re a part of the aura. We’re here, we’re now.” (p. 13) These kind of inquiries, which Murray supplies throughout the book, gives Jack brief moments of awareness that the world around him shapes how everyone sees