Death, Time and Mortality in the Later Novels of Don DeLillo

This book explores the theme of death in Don DeLillo's later novels, including Underworld, The Silence, and White Noise. It examines how death is portrayed as a dominant force in the characters' lives, affecting their thoughts, emotions, and actions. The study also considers DeLillos's use of language and his exploration of themes such as temporality, art, apocalypse, and epiphany. It proposes reflections on the meaning of death in a modern age dominated by media and technology.

Format: Hardback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive book delves into the profound exploration of death in the later novels of renowned author Don DeLillo. Spanning from Underworld to The Silence, along with his 1984 masterpiece White Noise, where the fear of death looms large over the protagonists, this study offers a systematic examination of DeLillo's oeuvre. Covering a span of eight novels, it traces the evolution of one of the most philosophical and esteemed novelists writing in English.

Death, intricately intertwined with time, temporality, and transience, has been a recurring theme throughout Don DeLillo's literary career. His later works are permeated with the cultural and sociopsychological manifestations and reactions that death elicits. DeLillo's reflection on dying revolves around various defensive mechanisms, destructive fantasies, concepts of immortality and cryonics, covert and overt surrogates, consumerism and media, as well as the mortification of the body. His characters, consumed by grief and plagued by psychosis, depression, and the impending sense of emptiness, immerse themselves in the process of mourning.

However, writing about death also entails confronting the inherent ambiguity and the limitations of its representation. This book delves into DeLillo's linguistic artistry, where temporality and a sense of death may manifest. It explores the transformation of time and death into art, with apocalypse serving as a central and recurring subject, while also presenting epiphany as a contrasting perspective.

In the culmination of the study, the author offers thoughtful reflections on the meaning of death in an age characterized by media and technology, dominated by financial capitalism and consumerism. Despite the distractions and complexities of modern life, death remains a sinister presence, haunting the minds of DeLillo's protagonists and permeating the fabric of his narratives. This book serves as a valuable contribution to the study of death in literature, shedding light on the profound and complex ways in which DeLillo explores this universal subject.

Weight: 520g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032260037