The safety of the community following the chemical spill is determined and defined by the authorities, the knowledge they are privy to and the manners by which they interpret that knowledge are unknowable to the public. However, their authority not only grants their conclusions credence, but solidifies their reality in the minds of the public. Jack's desire to reach the unknown and penetrate the veil of false images is what drives him to uncover the chemical properties of Dylar, and to seek out Mr. Grey. Furthermore, it is the keystone of his relationship with death: death is necessarily incomprehensible to living beings. Despite Jack's apparent attempts to get close to death or to somehow reach it, these attempts are masked efforts to distance himself from it or to defeat it. Although he associates himself with Hitler -- a man who is synonymous with death -- this is done with the goal of immortalizing himself. The fact that he chooses Hitler in particular is reflective only of his preoccupancy with the subject of death, not of his desire to reach it. It is this preoccupancy that fosters the perception that he lacks an identity. Only by accepting the specific moment that he is in, the particular things he sees and hears, and the unique emotions of a single moment can he realize who he is. Since he perceives life as a plot punctuated by the period called death, requires that his quest to find himself be a challenge to death itself.

The plot that Delillo employs is very much representative of Jack's notion that action inevitably leads to inaction. He makes this explicit when he says, "All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers' plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children's games." (Delillo 26). Jack's life seems to follow this general trend. He is exposed to Nyodene D, and his condition is regarded as fatal. The drug habit and infidelity he discovers with his wife and the identity of the man who...

In this respect, White Noise mimics a typical romance or tragedy; all that remains in completing the novel is to discover which one it might be. This is the goal of Delillo's unique use of plot: the rising action and turmoil of the story ultimately conclude in a manner that celebrates life, not by its contrast or opposition to death, but by its singular existence.
The reason Jack's constructed identity is not enough for him to claim victory over death is because his fear of death is independent of the actions of his life -- he is scared because he cannot know it. When Murray asks him if his fear would still exist had he attained some great accomplishment in his life he retorts, "Would you ask a man who bags groceries if he fears death not because it is death but because there are still some interesting groceries he would like to bag?" (Delillo 284). However, his violent actions towards Mr. Grey, far from brining him closer to understanding death, remind him of his existing life. Consequently, his identity crisis is swept away as he attempts to live his life more like Wilder -- he forgets that there is anything other than the immediate moment. Jack is unable to build himself into something that opposes death. The decidedly linear plot of White Noise requires a distinguishable ending, placed both emotionally and temporally. Delillo offers a slight alternative to this linear plot of life necessarily ending in death, and therefore, defining life's actions. Jack's discussion with Heinrich sheds some light on this point: Jack says, "You said there was no past, present or future," and Heinrich responds, "Only in our verbs. That's the only place we find it." (Delillo 24). Accordingly, only the actions of life imply death; a life seen independently of time and plot allow the individual to understand himself.

Works Cited

1. Delillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.