As much as we’ve talked about the issue of death in White Noise in class, I can’t help but feel that there’s more to say.
One passage that stood out in my mind after reading is in the middle of chapter 26 when Babette and Jack argue about who is more afraid of death. They go back and forth trying to one up each other, Babette even says at one point “I try to talk to it. ‘Not now, Death'” (199). Finally it comes to a point where Jack realizes how absurd the whole thing is: “How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn’t they paralyze us?” (198). He is just now coming to terms with the fact that he is not the only one who fears death. He and Babette have this continuous back and forth about “Who will die first?” because she does not want to live without him. In this scene, however, he finds out that truthfully she is terrified of death just like she is.
The interesting piece about this section is that after Jack has this revelation and wonders if everyone else really does fear death as much as he does, Babette does not even acknowledge what he’s said. She just moves on to the next point, “What if death is nothing but sound?” (198) and Jack goes along with it: “‘Electrical noise.’ ‘You hear it forever. Sound all around. How awful.’ ‘Uniform, white‘” (198, emphasis added). This is the only time where we get the idea of death as white noise. I think that this ties into how much white noise there is in these characters’ lives. The television is always on in the background, the highway runs through their backyard, there is constantly sound all around. The difference then between life and death in the novel is the loss of all other stimuli, sound is the only one that remains after death.
You end with a really interesting point, that death is a loss of stimuli. That sounds like something Siskind might say. I wonder if there’s room to question Jack’s description of death as white noise. That is, is there anything in the novel that suggests that DeLillo himself might take issue with Jack’s characterization?