Psychological Disorders in White Noise

My friend and classmate, Vanessa Bergeron, explores mental disorders in Don Delillo's novel White Noise. She argues that these mental disorders are caused by the rapid tehnological and social changes which took place in the western world in the 1980s. Here is a summary of her essay:

Don Delillo’s novel White Noise, which takes place in the mid-eighties in the fictional Midwestern town of Blacksmith, encapsulates the mental anguish caused by such change, a state for which American writer and futurist philosopher Alvin Toffler has coined the term “future shock.” Delillo has said that his novel “is about fear, death, and technology. A comedy, of course." (This is a great insight into the postmodern Black humour that pervades the novel). “Fear, death, and technology” cause most of the adult characters to suffer from mental disorders. By referring to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM IV), published by the American Psychiatric Association, mental diagnoses can be made of the characters. While technology acts as a gateway to schizophrenic behaviour for Jack, Murray’s concerns about urbanization are reflected in his various sexual disorders. Babette’s fear of death and upcoming loss of her identity as a mother trigger dependence related and amnestic disorders and the mental illness observed in other minor characters help in painting a bigger picture of collective mental illness experienced in adulthood.

             The most obvious mental disorder in White Noise is thanataphobia or fear of death, a phobia which stands at the very basis of the novel’s plot. In fact, white noise refers to Jack and Babette’s theory that death may be “nothing but sound,” an electrical, uniform, white noise that you hear forever and from all directions, a notion they find terrifying.  It also refers to the incomprehensible buzz of advertisements, media outlets, pointless conversations, in short the background noise of postmodern American culture which forms the backdrop of the novel.

 For an overview of these characters, visit this site.

Jack Gladney, the narrator of the novel

Paranoid Schizophrenia, which is characterized by hallucinations and fear of being watched or secretly manipulated by others.

-                                  Hallucinations: he sees floating spots at stressful moments and feels the television and radio are communicating with him

-                                   Fear of being watched/influenced: he feels that television has a “narcotic undertow and eerie diseased brain-sucking power,” “where the outer torment lurks, causing fears and secret desires.”

Murray Siskind, a professor at the College-on-the-Hill, where Jack also teaches

Sexual disorders

              One of the first things Murray tells Jack about himself is that he has run away from urban life so that he could free himself from the “the heat of food and sex”, “sexual entanglements” and “situation,” leaving the reader with the impression that sex is as much a source of torment for him as technological advancement is for Jack.

- Paraphilias is defined as: Any of a group of psychosexual disorders characterized by sexual fantasies, feelings, or activities involving a nonhuman object, a nonconsenting partner such as a child, or pain or humiliation of oneself or one's partner. Also called sexual deviation.

Examples: The way in which Murray is aroused by a woman “wearing stockings”, or by a woman “in spike heels and a slit skirt, with high-impact accessories” demonstrate how, despite his saying that he is mainly attracted to women’s minds, his sexual arousal also highly depends on the presence of certain objects.

- Fetishist = “fetish object is required or strongly preferred for sexual excitement”  

Example: he reads the magazine "American Transvestite," which reveals a transvestite fetishism.

- Necrophilia = sexual arousal stimulated by a dead body

              Example: He tells Jack that some writers he knows only have one topic of conversation: Sex and death. The two are therefore interlinked in his mind. He pays a prostitute to pretend to be choking so that he can perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on her...to act like she’s dying.

           

Babette, Jack's wife

Anxiety disorders caused by thanataphobia and gerascophobia, the  fear of aging

-                                Substance Dependence Disorder: She's addiction to nicotine, caffeine, chewing gum, and call-in radio shows)

-                               Generalized Anxiety Disorder: She says she feels “keyed-up or on the edge.”

-                              Amnestic Disorder = “unable to recall previously learned information, or “new information” 

                Examples: She has “difficulty concentrating without her mind going blank.” She asks “What is...” about common things mentioned in conversation. She tells Jack that she forgets “names, faces, phone numbers, addresses, appointments, instructions, directions.” Other things she forgets: her children’s names, how her children want to be called, she dials a number and forgets who she’s calling, goes to the store and forgets what she came to buy, having to repeatedly ask the same information.  She says, “I forget where I’ve parked the car and then for a long, long moment I forget what the car looks like.”

           

Minor characters

Tweedy, one of Jack's ex-wives.

                Hypochondriac: she wears gloves, eyeshades and socks because she believes that sunlight, air, food, water, and sex are all carcinogenic

                Shared Psychotic Disorder: She shares Jack’s schizophrenic tendencies. 

Dunlop, Jack's German teacher

We know little about this character but from these statements: he never comes out of his room, which is described as a “dark crowded room” in which he accumulates objects “against the walls and windows," we can conclude that he probably has a social disorder and is also prone to compulsive hoarding (which may be a type of OCD) 

Winnie Richards, works at the College-on-the-Hill with Jack

            Agoraphobia = Phobia of open spaces

               Extreme shyness

             White Noise indicates that most adults find themselves unable to adapt to a world that they perceive to be transforming at an unsettling pace. They thus gradually lose touch with reality, leading to a form of collective mental illness that affects “hundreds and thousands of people.” As Babette’s father says before leaving, “the mind goes before the body”, an undeniable fact which establishes a certain kinship and strong empathic bond or “odd affection” between the elderly, the mentally ill and aging parents. The slowly approaching sunset at the end of their lives is contemplated with either “wonder or dread” and while “[s]ome people are scared by the sunsets, some determined to be elated” but until the time comes, they will all keep “trying to figure out the pattern, discern the underlying logic” of an ever-changing world.


There is an interesting review of this work here:
http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/reviews/copy/0210/white_noise_don_delillo.html

Buy White Noise here: