Rethinking the Dualism: Don DeLillo's White Noise and the Ecocritical Possibilities
of the Nature/Culture Mix questions current applications of ecocriticism and offers
that these applications are inadequate in dealing with the perceived nature/culture
dualism. This thesis suggests that ecocritics need to stop thinking in dualistic terms,
but instead must consider that the separation between nature and culture is an illusion
created by the postmodern culture. Don DeLillo's White Noise, then, is used to
illustrate the possibilities of rethinking the relationship between nature and culture.
DeLillo exposes the illusion of the dualism by constantly implicating humans in the
alteration of nature and, despite humans' attempts to live within the illusory dualism
by controlling nature through tecimology, by revealing that man's efforts will always
fail through unintended consequences. This thesis culminates by proposing that
considering nature and culture as connected entities that constantly reshape each other
will absorb dualistic thinking and provide opportunities for ecocritics to expose truths
that are vital to fueling the desire to alter destructive relationships between nature and
culture. / Graduation date: 2004
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/31599 |
| Date | 12 June 2003 |
| Creators | Bowman, Natalie A. |
| Contributors | Wess, Robert |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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