Simulated Space and Semiotic Salvation: An Interpretation of Non-places in Don DeLillo’s White Noise

Abstract

In White Noise, Don DeLillo presents a world mired in simulation, hyperreality, consumerism, and technologies. This article finds a connection between Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra” and Marc Augé’s “Non-place”; that is, the simulated spaces can actually be considered non-places. This article analyzes the dilemmas contemporary American people are confronted with in three non-places: media as non-places, supermarkets and shopping malls as non-places and technologies as non-places, and reveals their useless and meaningless semiotic salvation by consumption of media, commodities and technologies.