Previous
Similes
Key Examples in White Noise
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Transcendental Meditation:
In Chapter 18, at the airport in Iron City to pick up his daughter Bee, Jack asks a stranger about the story of a flight that had nearly crashed before landing safely. A passenger recounts how the pilot spoke with shocking calmness while the situation in the flight became ever more dire; this contradiction creates situational irony:
This is American two-one-three to the cockpit voice recorder. Now we know what it’s like. It is worse than we’d ever imagined. They didn’t prepare us for this at the death simulator in Denver. Our fear is pure, so totally stripped of distractions and pressures as to be a form of transcendental meditation. In less than three minutes we will touch down, so to speak. They will find our bodies in some smoking field, strewn about in the grisly attitudes of death. I love you, Lance.
Related Themes:
Chapter 21
Explanation and Analysis—What Are They Calling It?:
In Chapter 21, which describes the Airborne Toxic Event, the Gladney family panics over the possible symptoms of exposure. They all huddle around the radio, as government reports rapidly change as experts acquire new information. Conclusions about the Event change so fast it seems as if the government experiences memory problems. One of the symptoms the Event causes, though, is déjà vu, a feeling as if the past is repeating itself. As a result, this discussion between Jack and Heinrich becomes an instance of situational irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+"Come on, tell me what they said on the radio while I was out there.”
“It doesn’t cause nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, like they said before.”
“What does it cause?”
“Heart palpitations and a sense of déjà vu.”
“Déjà vu?”
“It affects the false part of the human memory or whatever. That’s not all. They’re not calling it the black billowing cloud anymore.”
“What are they calling it?”
He looked at me carefully. “The airborne toxic event.”
He spoke these words in a clipped and foreboding manner, syllable by syllable, as if he sensed the threat in state-created terminology.
Related Themes:
Chapter 38
Explanation and Analysis—Simple!:
In Chapter 38, Jack imagines Mr. Gray having sex with Jack's wife in a motel room. (At this point Jack does not know that Mr. Gray is really Willie Mink.) He imagines the scene so deeply that he feels as though he is inhabiting both Babette and Mr. Gray in his mind. Then he snaps out of his reverie when he hears an ironic voice speaking:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Down the hall an eager voice said: “If you keep misplacing your ball of string, cage it in a Barney basket, attach some organizer clips to your kitchen corkboard, fasten the basket to the clips. Simple!”
Related Themes:
