於1985年出版後，《白噪音》一直以來都是展演後現代精神最具代表性的小說之一。諸如廣告和消費主義等文化現象佔據小說絕大部分，唐．德里羅透過主角傑克．葛雷德尼的視界，呈現了情節為後現代日常生活龐雜事件所稀釋的故事。在大眾媒體、超級商場與科技交織成的訊息網絡下，身為教授、人夫與父親，傑克面臨各式無趣抑或平庸的責任與義務――為求事業順利，誤打誤撞創立的希特勒研究、找出妻子服用的祕密藥物和每週五晚上與家人在電視機前相聚等。然而，儘管生活滿是瑣碎，傑克無時不刻想著死亡。無論他如何漫無目的地過活，他就是無法擺脫隨害怕與焦慮突然來訪的死亡。本論文中，為解釋德里羅為何讓《白噪音》專注於傑克平庸的日常生活而似乎不帶批判力道，我將試圖藉緒論中描繪的詹姆士．柏格之雷根主義式後末日修辭的特色，具象化藏於小說敘事底下的美國純真論述。第一章由小說中連貫事件時間相連與主題無關的矛盾下手，旨在找出德里羅作品中結構性難題之意義。從回顧三位論者之言與格哈德．霍夫曼的「情境主義」概念，我將指出論者與霍夫曼陷於二分之詮釋在於過度想從小說中找出積極的意義，以致無法觸及或甚正視《白噪音》書寫結構創新之核心。即便幾位論者都試著由比喻來解釋小說中的矛盾，他們不談此矛盾的意義，反倒只是以單一的具象比喻或者多樣的可能性來取代此矛盾。為避免落入此二分，我將轉至由德里羅小說的矛盾核心――時間的矛盾。不從二擇一的二分邏輯出發――整體／部分、單一／多數或持續／轉瞬，我主張《白噪音》裡時間的矛盾反倒藏匿了一隱而未見的欲望――純真或從時間重擔釋放的冀望：一方面讓小說不具「主題性意義」，另方面使故事以時間之終的方式前進。接著，第二章，接續我對小說中非修辭造成的純真概念之探索，我將重點置於連結第一章討論的時間之終與傑克擺脫不了死亡的困擾。首先，由瓦爾特．班雅明與艾瑞克．桑特勒對自然歷史的詮釋，我將討論死亡與時間之終在小說裡的關係。鑑於小說在主題的層次上似乎充斥著死亡――提點傑克或讀者尋找何謂當下自我／傑克的完整存有之將來的存有狀態，在形式的層次上小說似乎以迂迴的方式同時向「時間之終」邁進與遠離。因此，小說不斷阻斷自身的敘事路徑並同時在此路徑上留下死亡的殘餘，即構成桑特勒所謂「自然歷史」的殘餘。如此小說內部自然歷史的形成，不只引發讀者試圖找出連貫卻不相連的敘事殘餘之意義。傑克對於事件發生所帶來的改變毫無反應，因為只有他自身的死亡是唯一的末日；是故，傑克在日常中慣性回應方式無法為人理解。接著，為進一步描繪傑克的純真、藏匿於他對於能與死亡保持距離的反常自信下的純真――他自認自己並非平凡，我將分析小說裡傑克如何面對死亡。最後，回到柏格對後末日修辭之詮釋前，我將先概述本論文已做之討論。由回溯傑克之純真如何在《白噪音》之形式與內容中呈現――時間的矛盾與死亡做為小說的結構要素和敘事張力，我將連結表現純真與雷根主義式後末日修辭之特徵。當兩者同時帶有去除過去、現在與未來分野的時間性和為求保護信念而生之拒斥態度，我將以寓言式的方式將德里羅的作品與其他歷史情境和美國文化之參照相接。接著，最後，我也將討論傑克之純真與他所處之後現代環境之關係――除了保留對自身信念的純真樂觀，他不曉得該如何與此環境應對。

After its publication in 1985, White Noise has been regarded as one of the most representative works expressive of postmodern zeitgeist. While depictions of such cultural phenomena as advertisement and consumerism make up of the major part of this novel, Don DeLillo presents a story diluted by miscellaneous incidents through the eyes of the protagonist Jack Gladney to portray the different aspects of postmodern everyday life. As a professor, husband and father, Jack, who lives in the midst of and is within the information network interwoven by the mass media, supermarket and technologies, faces various tedious duties and plays different banal roles—flirting provocatively with Hitler studies to secure his career, finding out his wife’s secret medication, sitting with his family in front of television on each Friday night and so on. Yet, though his life is stuffed with trivial happenings, to Jack, he can’t help thinking about death. No matter how hard he tries to carry his life purposelessly, Jack is unable to get rid of the sudden intrusion of fear and anxiety provoked by his thought on death. In this thesis, in order to explain why DeLillo makes White Noise a seemingly uncritical work that focuses on the banality of Jack’s everyday life, I will attempt to flesh out the discourse of American innocence hidden under the narrative surface of this novel, which I would borrow James Berger’s idea of Reaganist post-apocalyptic rhetoric to outline its characteristics in the introduction. Chapter One, by emphasizing on the paradoxical temporal relatedness and thematic unrelatedness of consecutive events in White Noise, aims at making sense of the structural aporia in DeLillo’s work. From a review of three critics’ essays and by drawing on Gerhard Hoffmann’s notion of “situationalism,” I would like to indicate the dichotomized interpretations made both by critics and by Hoffmann, all of whom are too eager to extract a positive meaning out of the novel to touch and confront the nucleus of the structural innovation of White Noise. Though those critics try to put their emphases on finding out images that can, in a way, explain the paradox they find in this work, they all avoid explaining what that paradox means and instead they simply attempt to substitute it with either an image of thought or a possibility of multiplicity. To avoid falling prey to this easy dichotomization, I will turn to the core of the paradox in DeLillo’s work—the paradoxical sense of time. Rather than grounding my reading on the binary logic of either-or—unity/parts, one/many or duration/moments, I argue instead that there is an implicit desire hidden behind the paradoxical sense of time in White Noise—a wish to be innocent or free from the burdens of time, one that, on the one hand, makes the novel insensitive to the demand for “thematic significance,” and, on the other hand, drives the story to move headlong to the end of time. Then, in Chapter Two, to continue my explorations on the sense of innocence emanated from and if not rhetorically performed in White Noise, I will place my focus on Jack’s obsession with death by elaborating on and linking it with the notion of the end of time I discuss in Chapter One. Firstly, by drawing on Walter Benjamin and Eric Santner’s explanations on natural history, I attempt to discuss what the relations between death and the end of time in this work. Whereas, in a thematic level, the novel seems preoccupied with death—a will-be state of being that prompts either Jack or reader to grasp what Jack/his full being is; in a formal level, the novel seems to move in a circuitous manner that both moves towards and away from “the end of time.” As such, the novel repeatedly interrupts its own narrative course and leaves behind embodiments of death, those remains that constitute for Santner a “natural history,” in its course at the same time. Such natural history making not only induces us readers to dig out what those consecutive but unrelated narrated remainings signify. A sense of incomprehensible marks on Jack’s habitual response in life, given that he doesn’t respond to any kind of change brought by occurrences at all because the only apocalypse is his own death. Then, I will analyze how Jack faces death in this work to further describe his insistence on his innocence, an innocence that is masked as and covered under his perverse confidence in his ability to keep death away—he thinks he is the exception. Finally, before getting back to Berger’s elucidation on post-apocalypse rhetoric, in the conclusion, I will summarize what I’d discussed in my thesis first. By rewinding how Jack’s innocence is presented by the form and the content in White Noise—the paradoxical sense of time and death as a structural element and a narrative force, I would like to connect these features expressive of innocence in the novel to ones of Reaganist post-apocalyptic rhetoric. While both share the sense of time that eliminates distinctions among past, presence and future, and a disavowal attitude that endeavors to protect their own beliefs, I will allegorize DeLillo’s work to other historical contexts and references of American culture. Then, to conclude, I will discuss the relation between Jack’s innocence and his postmodern environment as well—he doesn’t know how to respond it other than remaining his innocent optimism in his own belief.

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