Author: ecarpenter20

Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise not only tells a story and has a message behind it, but he acts out the writing with a particular style. In the first part of the novel DeLillo focuses on the consumerism of the 1980’s he notes this by writing long off-topic tangents about different materialistic goods. The next focus on consumerism is how he shifts his writing throughout the first half. There is not really a plot and DeLillo is constantly switching up the scene so one minute the main character, Jack, is taking German lessons; the next minute he is having a conversation with his son while dropping him off at school. I think DeLillo deliberately writes in this fashion to represent how the human mind is constantly shifting the focus from one task to another without any bridge to connect the tasks. So he is taking a relatively hard theme to conceptually write about and is turning it into a style of writing. DeLillo emphasizes that the American people are consumers, receivers, receptors, and this theme flows into the next part of the novel labeled as “The Airborne Toxic Event.” In this part, there is a toxic mass that takes on a town, and while the town is evacuated all of the people are still susceptible to the hazardous mass, almost like sitting ducks. So, the consumers that had the world in their hands in the first part of the book, are now receiving the at full force the result of their own consumerism. Thirdly, DeLillo makes a point to put the children in the novel above the parents. He describes the children as in general more watchful, intelligent, and competent than their parents. At one point, Heimrich, Jack’s son, is talking to a crowd of people informing them on the airborne toxic event, what it is composed of, how it affects the body, and what they are doing to destroy it, before any of the adults. DeLillo also paints Heimrich in this superior lighting by having his conversations much more theological than the parents’ conversations. “Our senses? Our senses are wrong a lot more often than they’re right. This has been proved in the laboratory. Don’t you know about all those theorems that say nothing is what it seems?” This quote is from Heimrich talking to his father on the topic of rain; a topic so simple that the conversation can be ended with the phrase “yes, it is raining” or “no it is not raining,” but DeLillo takes advantage of the opportunity to make the younger generation more intellectually awake than the older generation. This novel also stands out because DeLillo never addresses the title in any form. In other novels the author will drop in a sentence that contains the title, but DeLillo never does this. Instead he takes white noise and turns it into part of his writing style. In the first part, DeLillo is constantly listing all of the material things people own or bring to college, after a couple lines of this the readers feel extremely bored and in turn ends up tuning out the reading, they are reading the white noise. DeLillo also continues this theme in the last part of the novel as the main character Jack is about to kill a man and in the process Jack is talking to himself and reciting his plan over and over again until that too become white noise resulting in Jack straying from the perfectly thought out plan and in turn saving the man’s life that he put in danger. White Noise is a novel with a constant flow of ideas, thoughts, and themes, each in connection with one another. The novel stylistically stands out because it is so complex.

The book White Noise, by Don DeLillo, is set in the United States in the 1980s. One of the most prime times for the influx in consumerism; people were captivated by televisions, cars, clothing, etc. DeLillo makes this theme of consumerism evident by the very beginning of the novel as he describes every possession that kids bring to the college where the main character, Jack, works as a professor in Hitler Studies. DeLillo also notes in depth the physical appearance and style of Jack’s wife, Babette, adding to the consumerism cloud that is held over the first part of the novel. DeLillo wrote White Noise as a satire and wrote in length about the elements of consumerism. As for the characters, Jack does not take a step back to see how engrossed he is in the materialistic world until he has a run-in with death after a toxic cloud composed of biohazard waste ascends onto his town and he is exposed the matter. Scientists and professionals give Jack a life expectancy of around 30 years to live; so, now Jack almost has a timer going on his life that finally brings him to realize there are things to experience in life outside of the materialistic world.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is a story about love and war. The Sun Also Rises explores the post war journey of a group of veterans battling with their physiological demons. The group medicates these demons by traveling around the world, drinking to oblivion, and filling the void with countless relationships. They are all completely unsatisfied with themselves and every character is constantly searching for more throughout life, unable to grasp what more is. Jake is one of the only characters who sees why they are not able to achieve happiness in a conversation between himself and Cohn: “I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another”(19). Noting that in times of confusion one must look inward. One of the biggest takeaways from this novel is that self love is the strongest love of all. Jake strives for something outside the realm of materialistic goods because he sees that his current way of life is only digging him a hole harder to climb out of. Jake confronts spirituality a few times throughout the course of the novel as he characterizes himself a lousy Christian; although, he eventually finds himself in a church in Pamplona, Spain. During a strange, rambling prayer to God the reader sees that Jake is the only one who is trying to connect with something of a higher power to give his life meaning. 

The characters were a part of the Lost Generation, an unfulfilled generation coming into maturity during a period of instability. Also characterized as the disoriented, wandering, directionless spirit of the survivors in the early post WWI period; the war destroyed many of the ideals of the generation. So, this novel follows the attempts at trying to piece together old ideals in new circumstances. Each character is in a constant trial and error battle; for Mike, staying sober did not help his cause, so he remains drunk for the entirety of the novel. Brett is involved in constant fleeting relationships with people unable to let herself love possibly as a defense mechanism to her previous abusive relationship. Jake so desperately loves Brett and drops everything to be with her again and again, even though they will never be together. 

This book tells the story that sometimes what you are looking for in life does not come in the package you had hoped for. Jake does anything for Brett and he is the only person she trusts, however he will never have her. No one in this story has any sense of self identification or direction in life because everything they had known before was ripped away at the hands of the Great War. 

The Sun Also Rises also gives an insight to the past. This novel depicts the raw truth of the world and what it was like for the Lost Generation to struggle. The novel sheds light to the realities of life; it is a novel with cheating, war horrors, money and gambling problems, debt, and alcoholism. A time where people needed to rebuild what they stood for. This novel teaches the reader that only those who have the capacity to look inward on themselves will be the ones to come out of the period of darkness. Hemingway does give us a ray of hope at the end. When Jake tells Brett “isn’t it pretty to think so?” the reader is inclined to think that he has started to put himself first and to realize that Brett cannot make him happy and perhaps he will start to move on. 

In the novel The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, a fiesta takes place as the main characters watch three professional bull fighters compete in their last day of fighting. Romero is a younger talented bull fighter on the upcoming; Marcial is seasoned bullfighter, he is good, but not great, and Belmonte had just recently come out of retirement to compete against Marcial in what is assumed to be one of his last bull-fights. Although, Belmonte’s return to glory was over shadowed by the incredibly high expectations of the crowd: “the public were disappointed because no real man could work as close to the bulls as Belmonte was supposed to have done, not, of course, even Belmonte” (217). The crowd wants to feel the same captivating fight as they did when Belmonte first started out, however, now that they know how he fights the crowd has moved onto cheering for someone else. Romero a young bull-fighter is now the favorite as he is carried out on the shoulders of the crowd after he wins his fight against the bull. Belmonte was no longer the fan favorite and Hemingway acknowledges this: “He no longer had his greatest moments in the bull-ring. He had flashes of the old greatness with his bulls. Pedro Romero had the greatness” (218). Belmonte is having to swallow the hard pill that he has been replaced. Belmonte is similar to Ed Tom Bell because they both are clinging onto what once was. They are now in the position to be replaced and as a way to easy the pain they both recount the days where they were still vital to their operation. They both feel that there line of work is now a younger man’s game and they should set aside, o matter how hard that is to do.

The Sun Also Rises started off in Paris with the characters Jake, Bill, Cohn, Brett and Mike. Everyone was bored and tired of the city, willing to admit it or not. Jake and Bill spent their days attempting to drown the scars of World War I in alcohol. As the plot moved along, the group of friends takes a trip to Pamplona, Spain, for several weeks. During one of the weeks, Jake and Bill head up to the country side to fish for trout in a little village. Hemingway put enormous emphasis on the colorful details and descriptions of country side; much different than how he described Paris as being dull and gray. During this fishing trip, I got a sense that this was a very therapeutic time for both of the veterans. The river represented a sense of purity and the men were almost being washed of the terrors of war. Since alcohol is involved in almost every scene, there was no shortage of wine during the fishing trip; however, it seemed to take a different effect. The men kept the wine in the river to chill it before drinking. Hemingway described the river purifying the wine and when the men drank the wine it brought out their creativity and rejuvenated them; the opposite of the rowdiness experienced in France. I think that the way Hemingway changes his writing style to be more descriptive and focused on the scenery and the emotions Jake feels shows that Hemingway is using this part of the novel to symbolize the reawakening of Jake and Bill’s senses.

The in novel The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway weaves subtle threads of religion into the partying plot line. Jake Barnes, the main character, carries around the physiological scars of fighting in World War I and he represents a typical member of the Lost Generation. The Catholic church has a tradition of a stoic response to suffering, and this is reflected in Jake’s character throughout the novel. He is a silent suffer. However, it is evident that Jakes no longer identifies as apart of the Catholic church; when he was on the train to Spain, a group of Catholic pilgrims took over the first four rounds of lunch. Even though Jake could have easily joined he choose not too, demonstrating that he does not want to have part in the Catholic Church. Jake does not recognize himself as much of a Catholic, but there are times where he acknowledges the religion: “I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it” (103). Jakes goes on to wonder into a Cathedral in Pamplona, Spain, kneels in a pew and prays. This is one of the first larger insights the reader has into Jakes religious life. However, his prayer is a representation of how religious he is; he starts off praying for everyone around him then his train of thought leads him to praying to make money. Jake has a continuous battle with turning to God because in Jake’s eyes, God has done very little for him. He is feeling extremely hopeless in his relationships with other people and tends to be almost floating through life. I think it will be very interesting to see if Jakes position on the Catholic Church changes over the course of the novel.

In the book, The Day of the Locust, the author, Nathaniel West puts emphasis on the theme of love. However given the hedonistic nature of this novel the question arises, what type of love is he emphasizing? The novel is centered around people striving for success at all costs: “I’m going to be a star some day,” she announced as though daring him to contradict her […] “If I’m not, I’ll commit suicide” (154). This quote identifies how consumed Faye is with the Hollywood dream and how she has yet to fall to the mercilessness of Hollywood movie industry. Throughout the book, West has shown that no one is to be trusted in Hollywood and everyone is there to achieve success for themselves. From the moment Faye and her Father stepped into Tod’s house, they were deceiving him to get him to buy shoe polish. Since the characters are so consumed with this ambition of success, one can think that the characters are using the idea of love as a catalyst to achieve success. Faye will only “fall” for someone who is wealthy or handsome which would thus give her some platform; she constantly shuts down anyone she does not deem wealthy or handsome enough. Which in turn leads to many men pinning after her for the entirety of the novel, and she uses them when she is in need of something. For example, Faye took advantage of Homer when she needed clothes and a place to stay. So, I think that West is trying to say that Hollywood love cannot be trusted when people are thoroughly consumed with themselves.

The Sun Also Rises was written by Earnest Hemingway in 1926. The beginning of the story takes place in Paris during the 20s as a group of authors manage their social lives by partying and drinking and occasionally writing novels. The main characters, Jake Barnes, Robert Cohn, and Lady Ashley (Brett), make up the main group of friends. Jake and Brett have a Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanon-like romance; they both love each other but cannot be together for an unknown reason. The reader is inclined to think that it is because Brett is of a higher class than Jake. 

I chose this painting to compare to the beginning of the novel because through many of the characters’ eyes, Cohn and Brett, Paris is “old news,” it is dull, bleak, and boring; however, through Jake Barnes’ view he sees the color. He sees the color of Paris during taxi drives going from one side of Paris to the other as he stares at the architecture, and he sees the color of Paris in the different people he encounters along the way, particularly in Brett. Jake is constantly trying to get away from the drama that surrounds the group, by walking off through Paris by himself and admiring what the city has to offer. Jake does admit that Paris has some bleaker and boring areas which are illustrated by the lack of color in the painting, but he chooses to focus on what color he can find. Similarly, in this painting the eye is not drawn to the grays and blacks, but rather it is drawn to the colors.

No Country For Old Men and The Grapes of Wrath

To start off both books have similar country settings, No Country for Old Men takes place down in a barren part of Texas by the border, while The Grapes of Wrath takes place in the panhandles of Oklahoma as the Joad family moves west across the desolated south western part of the US. On a character aspect, Ed Tom Bell and Pa are quite similar, they both come from an older generation when times were much simpler. During the Joad journey, Pa quickly wears out and hands the role of the leader of the family down to Tom. Ed Tom Bell is worn down as a sheriff thinking about retiring because his job has very much turned into a young man’s game; both characters realize that they are not youthful enough to continue their previous life roles. In each challenge that characters face in both books, they refuse to accept defeat. In No Country for Old Men, Moss fights until his death, and never once believes that he will die at the hands of Chirguh, which leads to the death of Carla Jean, but nonetheless, he never gives up. In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family never gives up, despite every setback during their journey, every person that tells them not to go to California, they continue on.

This photograph is called “Migrant Mother” and it was taken in 1936 during the dust bowl migration west. In this photo we see the toll that a migration has on someone; providing for a family and attempting to move across the country with little to nothing. Tom Joad, in the Grapes of Wrath, is similar to the woman because Tom fills the position of the head of the family. During the migration, Tom plans out the route, finds places for the family to stay at night, talks to store clerks and other people on behalf of the family. In this photo the mother is the family member others rely on. She is staring off into the distance the photo and makes it appear as if she is thinking about ways to provide for her family. Similarly, Tom is constantly thinking about the family and how to make it to California. The children in the photo are physically and mentally leaning on her and trusting the mom to survive. They are wearing dirty torn clothes; so, we can determine that they have been on the road somewhere and are struggling. The Joad family is in the same position, they have not bathed, are riding in the trunk of a car across the desert with heat stroke, and they are all leaning on Tom to get them to their destination.