Authors often use major plot events to represent larger ideas and issues. What happens exactly, and how the characters react, and the events that result often help to illustrate the theme and point of a work as a whole. With this in mind, discuss the significance of “The Airborne Toxic Event” as an example of a plot event that serves the purpose of communicating Delillo's message in White Noise. (15 minutes)
Claims:
- The supermarket remains a source of comfort and reassurance for Jack, but Delillo suggests that the security he feels there may be illusory and that Jack, at times, has a sense of that superficiality (159-162).
- The post-ATE sunsets function as a symbol of the paradoxical nature of Jack and Babette’s life in the postmodern consumerist society they inhabit (162).
- Knowledge, especially if validated by authority - whether trivial, forecasted, scientific, or hypothetical - is a source of controversy, confidence and anxiety (163, 166-169).
- Devise and define your own claim about Babette and Dylar.
