White Noise

In an attempt to lend some of his academic aura to Murray’s Elvis pursuits, Jack gives a guest lecture to his colleague’s class. Jack describes Hitler’s ability to hypnotize crowds, which gathered “to form a shield against their own dying” (73). As he says this, he notices a crowd has gathered around him.

All afternoon, two-year-old Wilder cries incessantly. Jack waits in the car with a still-bawling Wilder while Babette teaches her posture class. In narration, Jack says, “I began to think he had disappeared inside this wailing noise and if I could join him in his lost and suspended place we might together perform some reckless wonder of intelligibility” (78). Halfway home, Wilder abruptly stops crying after seven hours.

On the way to the mall, Denise asks Babette what she knows about Dylar. Babette feigns ignorance, and before Denise can press her further, the rest of the family begins to converse at a rapid clip, sharing misinformed items of trivia. Jack suggests that family and misinformation go hand in hand because “facts threaten our happiness and security” (82).

At the mall, the Gladneys revel in the consumerist ritual of Christmas shopping. Jack likens consumerism to a kind of karmic activity through which one gains “existential credit” (83).