One of the most striking and most prolific themes in White Noise is the distortion of the mundane and other facets of life not normally considered mundane. The grocery list of items brought by students and parents as well as the spectacle they create at the beginning of the novel, for instance, mixes a sense of comical awe with monotony. Although spectators cannot help but gather for this yearly ritual, readers become bogged down by lists of worthless junk. These lists crop again and again throughout the text, adding a tone of superfluity to items and situations considered more important to the characters in the novel. At times when Jack is clearing out the house, instead of revealing precious mementos and priceless goods he tosses out pieces of rubbish and uselessly horded refuse. Even his diplomas and awards receive this treatment; after his ordeal with the airborne toxic event and his acknowledgement of his premature death, these markers of his success and progress become meaningless scraps of paper that signal time wasted.
Sex also becomes mundane in this novel, transforming from something invigorating to a daily chore. When Babette reads erotic prose to Jack, she does so with the same tone as she reads tabloids to the blind and stories to Wilder. The act itself does not seem to arouse her; she mentions earlier in the book that she only reads dirty literature to make Jack happy. Sex becomes something that characters simply exchange, whether as a sign of gratitude from a wife to her husband or as pure currency. The presence of prostitutes outside of the evacuation shelter endorses sex as currency in that their services are something they can just go out and purchase at a whim. Even Babette uses her body as collateral, exchanging sex for medications, disallowing kissing and other signs of affection and reducing these encounters to businesslike exchanges.
Even religion becomes devalued, becoming something that just happens in one’s life without further need for thought. The nuns of Germantown, for instance, have none; they merely keep up a front to bring security to others. The nuns perform religious rituals with as much enthusiasm as someone taking out the garbage. Religion, once a staple of life, something that give individuals a reason to live, becomes something to which one performs lip service.
Grocery shopping, on the other hand, takes on an air that blows this otherwise mundane act into something absurdly vibrant and exciting. Neon labels shout out brand names throughout aisles; unnaturally bright produce gleam from bountiful bins, providing foreign, out of season goods on demand; tabloids convey tidbits of invaluable information; cereal boxes that inspire avant garde study. A process that should not be considered unusual becomes the crux of suburban existence, a necessity that fulfils one’s social and cultural needs.
Another way of framing the novel’s elevation of the mundane is to think about the dichotomy between the sacred and profane. These are two dominant spheres in our life, and we like to keep them separate, preserving the sanctity of both (Yes, the profane has a kind of purity to it!). Anyway, the novel repeatedly inverts these two realms. The sacred becomes profane (the nuns who do not believe) while the profane becomes sacred. Think of Gladney’s almost religious experience of digging through his family’s trash…it’s a series of nearly mystical revelations to him!