The crowd versus the individual was one pattern of thought that I followed throughout the text.\u00a0 The book shows several crowds, starting with the wedding in the prologue.\u00a0 But more abstract crowds appear in the form of the terrorist group, the unification church, and the homeless crowds near Brita’s apartment.\u00a0 The crowds are often positioned in opposition to the individuals in the text: “She went home to feed the cat but returned right away, taking a Jamaican taxi and saying Tompkins square…People in clusters and large groups” (150).\u00a0 Karen feels compelled to walk amongst the crowd.<\/p>\n
Bill, who embodies the individualist through his reclusive habits, attempts to fight a terrorist group on behalf of the individual.\u00a0 Bill goes to speak for the kidnapped writer, but ends up getting even more involved.\u00a0 I think this connection has less to do with him being a writer, and more to do with him being an individual.\u00a0 He tries to go against the terrorist group, not on behalf of that specific person, but on behalf of the principle of individuality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reading the book in this way made the ending even more jarring.\u00a0 Bill’s death symbolizes the death of the individual and the triumph of the group.\u00a0 Is DeLillo trying to say that there is no longer a place for the individualist in our society?\u00a0 He brings up the idea that we no longer have power on an individual scale, because the only real power comes from groups.\u00a0 This, to me, is a very frightening idea.<\/p>\n
The idea of the individual versus the crowd is a reoccurring theme in DeLillo’s body of work.\u00a0 In an earlier novel, End Zone<\/span>, DeLillo’s main character is a reclusive football player who often seeks solace in the empty desert surrounding the town.\u00a0 He is more at peace when he is in the wordless desert, compared to being on the field with his team.\u00a0 In Great Jones Street<\/span>, the main character is a rockstar who leaves his band and management to go into hiding.\u00a0 In this book, we rarely see large crowds, but I feel like American consumers act as a crowd that is felt without being explicitly shown.<\/p>\n In an interview\u00a0from the New York Times, the writer makes a comparison between Bill Gray’s reclusive individualism and Don DeLillo’s own lifestyle. (http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/97\/03\/16\/lifetimes\/del-v-dangerous.html?_r=1&oref=login<\/a>)\u00a0 This makes me think that DeLillo understands the success of the crowd as having a negative impact on our society.\u00a0 The crowds is devoid of the artistic ability that Bill and DeLillo hold in such high regard. \u00a0It seems like DeLillo fears that the crowd, especially in the form of the terrorist group, is quickly replacing the power of the writer: “The cult of Mao was the cult of the book.\u00a0 It was a call to unity, a summoning of crowds where everyone dressed alike and thought alike” (162).\u00a0 He also makes this connection earlier in the book when Bill explicitly states “…our books lose the power to shape and influence…Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of a culture.\u00a0 Now bomb-makers and gunmen have that territory” (41).\u00a0 I’m not sure if this prolific passage could have been fully understood by the books original audience, but at this point I feel it’s something that should really resonate with our society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The crowd versus the individual was one pattern of thought that I followed throughout the text.\u00a0 The book shows several crowds, starting with the wedding in the prologue.\u00a0 But more abstract crowds appear in the form of the terrorist group, the unification church, and the homeless crowds near Brita’s apartment.\u00a0 The crowds are often positioned … Continue reading The Individual and the Crowd<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-11-mao-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}