Andrew's Blog, Part II

     In the passage on pages 82-84 of Don DeLillo’s White Noise Jack and his family visit the Mid-Village Mall. DeLillo’s description of the mall and use of imagery is very interesting. He uses metaphors and similes comparing the shopping experience to being in a jungle or a rain forest or some wild environment. For example, in one shop in the mall “A great echoing din, as of the extinction of a species of beast, filled the vast space” and “Rope hung like tropical fruit” (DeLillo 82). When Jack and his family enter the main structure of the mall DeLillo mentions “waterfalls, promenades, and gardens” (83) in the middle court of the structure. There is a strange artificiality to these objects. The mall seems to have been made to make consumers feel like they are in a completely separate world from the real world. Inside the mall Jack’s “girls scouted ahead” as “[his] guides to endless well-being” (83). Jack has been consumed by the artificiality of the world he has entered. He believes he can find “endless well-being” from material goods. Towards the end of the passage DeLillo describes the noises in the mall as “a roar that echoed and swirled through the vast gallery” (84) as if the people in the mall became almost wild at the prospect of shopping and consuming. DeLillo makes the new hunt of man not a hunt for food, but a hunt for material goods. The world of the mall makes Jack feel lost and confused. He becomes someone else; he loses his identity because of the awkwardness and confusion of this new world he has entered. He tries to find himself and define himself by buying stuff, but this doesn’t work. Eventually his family becomes “private, shadowy, even secretive” and they “drove home in silence … wishing to be alone” (84). The shopping trip does not leave him fulfilled or satisfied, he just becomes silent and wanting to escape.

     In the movie The Ring, communication technology appears to be haunted. The movie is focused around a video with a sequence of strange events and pictures on it. If anyone watches the video they have seven days to live. The video has many haunting features. For example, the display numbers on the VCR do not tell the time of the movie. It does not even have numbers, just random lines. Also, when Noah examines the film he notices that it has no tracking sequence, which he says is kind of like “being born without fingerprints.” This makes it impossible to figure out where the tape came from. During the tape there is a straight on shot of a mirror and Noah points out that you should be able to see the camera in the shot. The lack of a tracking sequence and the lack of a camera make it seem as if the movie came about by unnatural circumstances.

     During one watching of the video, Rachel notices what appears to be a fly on the screen of the television, but when she tries to touch the fly it is only in the movie. But later when she is watching the film again she tries once again to touch the fly and the fly is actually real. She holds it in her hand and her nose starts to bleed. The video has the ability to interact with the real world, and has the ability to come alive.

     Another way in which the video comes alive is the way in which it affects Rachel’s life. Upon leaving Noah’s building she sees a ladder leaning against the wall, which is similar to a scene in the video. The dream also makes her have visions. She sees the little girl in her son’s room one night and when she walks up to her, the little girl grabs her arm. When she awakes from this vision, there is a burn mark on her arm, where the girl grabbed her. The little girl has used the video as a means of entering into people’s lives and coming into the real world. She can even walk out of television sets and “come alive”.

     The Ring has taken technology and distorted it in ways that people have never thought of. Technology has always been separate from both the real world and the supernatural world in many ways. Television is similar to the real world, but there has always been a boundary between the two. And most people do not link the supernatural to technology. Technology is supposed to make sense; it is supposed to be scientific and made by humans. In this movie the boundary is eliminated. The world of television and video coincides with the real world and the supernatural. It brings all three of these places into one horrifying situation.