The ‘age of innocence’ in White Noise

I have titled my post as such partly because I think I am terribly clever, but mostly because I think the children in White Noise are rather ironic. Children in novels usually represent innocence and pure unadulterated knowledge, but none of the children in White Noise actually behave as children. It could be that the way DeLillo wrote it, the uniform way that all of the characters’ thoughts and actions are presented simply makes the children seem older than they are. The only problem with that is the actions of the children detailed in the text are simply too adult.

Denise may be the most responsible character in the novel, constantly looking after Babette and voicing her concerns to Jack. She is an authority figure, double checking Babette’s medications and keeping track of Steffie. Heinrich is already a bitter outsider, questioning everything, finding no purpose, no joy. Steffie volunteers to pretend to be dead to fulfill a silent duty to society, and Wilder isn’t a child so much as a plaything.

I couldn’t tell you why this bothers me so much. It is not that I think children only have one place and that when they do not fit the pigeonholes I have for them I don’t think they serve any sort of purpose (although that could be what’s bothering me and I just don’t want to feel ignorant). I think what bothers me the most is that I don’t understand why DeLillo made these children so mature, so responsible, so aware. I don’t think that it was an accident of syntax or format. It could be that he knew how unsettling it would be to read a novel about disaster where children could only respond pragmatically. Perhaps the children, set in stone in their ways, provide a stark contrast to Jack, who seems to be constantly changing his mind and his mood. Maybe they serve to illustrate that there can be no innocence in the wake of disaster–but then why did Wilder suddenly gain his innocence for the first time in the final chapter?