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1 results

  • Chapter 15 - Signs

  • from Part III - Media and Pop Culture
  • Edited by Jesse Kavadlo
  • Book:
    Don DeLillo In Context
    Published online:
    19 May 2022
    Print publication:
    02 June 2022, pp 144-152

  • Summary

    In the epoch of global capitalism, writers must be hypervigilant to the usage of their medium of choice –the written, printed word – readily aware of the proliferation of the grapheme and the saturation of visual signage in the media environment. Product advertisements that once depended on the enlarged-type appeal of slogans invariably stating the brand name have given way to an iconic Esperanto, equally legible to anyone around the globe. As a literary author, Don DeLillo recognizes that the image in our visual culture has become the dominant medium of our time. Despite this displacement of the writer from a central position in mass culture, DeLillo’s novels, such as White Noise, Mao II, and Underworld offer considerations as to how the post-war author might evade absorption by visual media and global capitalism, and whether it is possible to maintain a resistant, if marginalized, position in society.