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The Postmodern Condition in Don Delillo's Fiction: White Noise And

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The Postmodern Condition in Don Delillo's Fiction: White Noise And T. C. İstanbul Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Anabilim Dalı Amerikan Kültürü ve Edebiyatı Bilim Dalı Yüksek Lisans Tezi The Postmodern Condition in Don DeLillo’s Fiction: White Noise and Players Coşkun Liktor 2501100115 Tez Danışmanı: Prof. Dr. Ayşe Erbora İstanbul, 2012 THE POSTMODERN CONDITION IN DON DELILLO’S FICTION: WHITE NOISE AND PLAYERS Coşkun Liktor ÖZ Bu çalışmanın amacı Don DeLillo’nun White Noise (Beyaz Gürültü) ve Players (Oyuncular) adlı romanlarını postmodern teoriler ışığında incelemektir. Bu incelemede temel alınan teoriler, büyük anlatıların çöküşü, gerçekliğin yok oluşu, öznenin ölümü, tüketim toplumunun yükselişi, teknoloji ve medyanın giderek artan hakimiyeti gibi postmodern sosyokültürel durumun belli başlı unsurlarını irdeleyen Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard ve Fredric Jameson’ın yaklaşımları ile sınırlandırılmıştır. Bu çalışma, çağdaş Amerikan romanının ustalarından Don DeLillo’nun günümüzde hüküm sürmekte olan postmodern duruma dair ne denli keskin bir kavrayışa sahip olduğunu ve teknolojik açıdan gelişmiş, medya tarafından kuşatılmış tüketim toplumunda yaşayan insanların açmazları, korkuları ve sıkıntılarına dair ne denli yerinde içgörüler sunduğunu göstermeyi hedeflemektedir. Postmodernizm üzerine yapılan teorik çözümlemelere denk düşecek şekilde Don DeLillo eserlerinde din, bilim ve us da dahil olmak üzere her türlü dayanaktan yoksun kalan bireyin şaşkınlık içinde bocaladığı, tüketim çılgınlığı, teknoloji ve kitle iletişim araçlarının tahakkümü altında olan bir dünya tasvir etmektedir. Bu çalışma ilkin Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard ve Fredric Jameson’ın kilit fikirleri ve saptamalarını ortaya koyduktan sonra Don DeLillo’nun White Noise ve Players romanlarına odaklanarak günümüz dünyasının DeLillo’nun romanlarındaki izdüşümü ile Baudrillard, Lyotard ve Jameson’ın dile getirdiği postmodern durumun belli başlı unsurları arasındaki çarpıcı benzerlikleri açığa çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. ABSTRACT The aim of this dissertation is to analyse Don DeLillo’s novels White Noise and Players through the lens of the theories of the postmodern, specifically those of Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Fredric Jameson, who delineate such key features of the current postmodern sociocultural condition as the collapse of the grand narratives, the loss of the real, the dissolution of the human subject, the predominance of consumerism, technology and the mass media. The present study is an attempt to demonstrate that Don DeLillo, who is one of the masters of contemporary American fiction, has a particularly keen awareness of the prevailing postmodern condition and provides penetrating insights into the predicaments, fears and tribulations of people who struggle to survive in the technologically advanced, media-saturated consumer society. In a way that is congruent with the theoretical writings on the postmodern, Don DeLillo depicts a world dominated by consumerism, technology and the mass media where the disoriented individual is deprived of all stable points of reference such as religion, science or reason which can no longer offer any order or meaning in the postmodern age. After identifying the central positions and insights of Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Fredric Jameson, the present study focuses on Don DeLillo’s novels White Noise and Players with the aim of elucidating the ways in which the vision of the contemporary world presented by DeLillo bears a striking resemblance to the various aspects of the postmodern condition articulated by the aforementioned theorists. iii PREFACE The prevailing view among theorists of postmodernism is that the vast social, economic, technological, philosophical and cultural developments which have taken place throughout the second half of the twentieth century have given rise to immense transformations in all areas of life which constitute what is generally referred to as ‘the postmodern condition.’ Not surprisingly, the manifold aspects of the postmodern condition and its impact on human beings’ experience of reality and mode of being have preoccupied not only theorists but also writers of fiction. Don DeLillo occupies a distinguished place among those contemporary writers who have risen to the challenge of diagnosing the symptoms of the current postmodern sociocultural condition and its debilitating effect on the individual: On the whole, DeLillo’s novels portray a world which is increasingly divorced from the real, dominated by the mass media, immersed in consumerism and inhabited by characters who are less like autonomous individuals with a unique identity than hollow figures emptied of substance, helpless in the face of the disorienting uncertainties of postmodern life and stupefied by overexposure to a superabundance of information and images. The main contention of this study is that there exist significant parallels between DeLillo’s anatomy of the contemporary American society and the theoretical writings of three key theorists of postmodernism, namely Jean Baudrillard, Jean- François Lyotard and Fredric Jameson, which, in turn, bears witness to the fact that DeLillo is not only a successful fiction writer but also an equally successful cultural critic. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Ayşe Erbora for kindly consenting to be my advisor as well as for all the help and support she has provided during my undergraduate and graduate studies. I would like to extend my thanks to the members of the dissertation committee and the Department of American Culture and Literature at Istanbul University. I would also like to acknowledge the faculty of the Department of American Culture and Literature at Haliç University, namely Assist. Prof. Dr. Çiler Özbayrak, Assist. Prof. Dr. Sırma Soran Gumpert, Assist. Prof. Dr. iv Gamze Sabancı, Assist. Prof. Dr. Gordon Marshall and Burcu Gürkan for their support during my undergraduate studies. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and indebtedness to my father Mustafa Liktor and my mother Melek Liktor, without whose ongoing support and encouragement nothing would have been possible. My special recognition goes out to my wife Pınar Liktor, not only for bearing with me throughout the writing process, but also for discussing ideas with me with great insight and critical awareness and thus providing authentic advice and inspiration during the research and composition of this dissertation. v CONTENTS ÖZ / ABSTRACT..................................................................................................iii PREFACE.............................................................................................................iv CONTENTS..........................................................................................................vi INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1. THE POSTMODERN CONDITION: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.............................................13 1.1. Jean Baudrillard...........................................................................13 1.2. Jean-François Lyotard.................................................................30 1.3. Fredric Jameson...........................................................................43 CHAPTER 2. WHITE NOISE AND THE DELILLOIAN DESERT OF THE REAL............................................................59 2.1. American Simulacra....................................................................63 2.2. The Ecstacy of Commodification and Communication..............82 2.3. A Requiem for the Grand Narratives........................................101 CHAPTER 3. PLAYERS AND THE PLIGHT OF THE POSTMODERN SUBJECT......................................................122 3.1. The End of the Unique Individual............................................123 3.2. Reinventing the Self as Player..................................................141 3.3. Disorientation in the Age of Multinational Capitalism............162 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................179 BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................187 vi INTRODUCTION When Jean-François Lyotard’s seminal work The Postmodern Condition (orig. La Condition postmoderne) was published in France in 1979, the concept of postmodernism was already a fashionable theme that had been the subject of heated debates in cultural and intellectual circles, involving ongoing controversies as to whether it was a historical period or an attitude, or whether it should be conceived of as a continuation of or a break with modernism. While some theorists, such as Jean Baudrillard, regarded postmodernism as a radical rupture1 that marked the beginning of a novel era, others like Marshall Berman, Anthony Giddens and Matei Calinescu viewed postmodernism as a particular phase, or, as Calinescu put it, a ‘face’ of modernism.2 A number of theorists, such as Fredric Jameson and David Harvey, took a more ambivalent stance, arguing that there were both important differences and significant continuities between the two.3 Others still, for instance Jean-François Lyotard, rejected all attempts at historical periodization and viewed modernism and postmodernism “as engaged in a long-running relationship with one another”, with the latter “continually pointing out the limitations of” the former (Ritzer, 1997: 8). As opposed to those, like Lyotard, who welcomed postmodernism
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