The Waves of Radiation and The Smell of Existentialism
-“Everything is concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural material. But it is psychic data, absolutely. The large doors slide open, they close unbidden. Energy waves, incident radiation (Delillo 37).”
— Murray Jay Sinkind.
This quote I believe ultimately sums up the first segment of this book. We see many different conversations leading back to the same age-old question that Nietzsche so notably studied; the importance and survival of the self. Existentialism, secretly presiding in the conversations we read between Jack Gladney and his son, Heinrich, as well as the many deep-in-thought monologues we hear from Murray like the quote above show the reader a glimpse of what is yet to come. This question bewilders almost every character we have been introduced to thus far in the novel, especially our protagonist narrator, Jack, who becomes so bothered by this question that he ends up ranting to his students this pessimistic and existential speech:
-“All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lover’s plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children’s games. We edge nearer [to] death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot (Delillo 26).”
— J. A. K. Gladney
Here we see the vocalization of the fear that manages to be the only thing that Jack does not discuss with his wife, Babette. This is outburst can clearly be noted to have been bothering Jack since the beginning of the novel. The conversations that Jack has with his son doesn’t alleviate Jack’s fears either: about the physicality of the self, the importance and symbolic meaning of truth both lead to Jack’s deeper thought process regarding his direction in the world, or rather the energy waves that will push him towards our climactic disaster.
-“Who will die first (Delillo 15,30,99)?”
— Jack Gladney
We can also see Jack symbolically and existentially ask himself this question of who will die first, after listing the simple facts that many have misunderstood to be useless information. These are more important facts than what they are led on to be, especially because after them we are given this random question of who will die first; almost as if Jack subconsciously knows that some impending doom is looming around the corner and is trying to warn his conscious about the danger.
We are seeing the concealed truth of what is yet to come for this soon-to-be disastrous plotline. The signs are ultimately located underneath every line of symbolic text written by Delillo. This type of build-up leads me to believe that not only will the disaster be paramount, but also that the characters will learn and possibly understand how to deal with their important questions and trepidations towards their own deaths…because their time is now sparing, just like the ill-fated character’s of our previous novel, Lucifer’s Hammer.