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

White Noise; Simulacra; Non-place; Semiotic Salvation

Authors

  • Peng
    zhangpeng-harris@outlook.com
    Teaching Assistant, School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xihua University, Chengdu, China
May 10, 2023

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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.