Living in a simulacrum: how TV and the supermarket redefines reality in Don DeLillo’s White Noise

This paper examines the impact of simulation, hyperreality, and consumerism on Don Delillo's novel "White Noise". It discusses how the novel pictures technology and mass media as an empire of signs and codes that erase or implode meaning. TV, radio reports and tidbits, and medical imaging devices are intertwined with many aspects of people's lives in this late capitalist culture. Futhermore, the paper will shed some light on the issue of hyperreality which is generated by simulations. We will see how this new type of reality becomes more real than reality itself. Then, the influence of the supermarket and the emergence of consumer culture will be discussed. We will see how production and consumption have gained a new different meaning in this new "superficial" society and how it reshapes people's undestanding and interaction with reality.