In my American Studies class in school, we recently finish White Noise by Don DeLillo. Here is the premise of the book: set in the 70s, tells the story of Jack Gladney, a Hitler studies professor at a college, and his family. After the set up, a cloud of chemicals comes that forces the family to leave town for a little, and later move back. Jack is of course the main character, complex and interesting, but his wife Babette also receives a decent amount of development. Don't get your hopes up though, by no means is she described flatteringly. When we do learn about her, it is for short sections, that could be thought of as white noise.
I am not surprised by the lack of impressive female characters in the novel. I think that this novel merely mirrors life. The New York Times recently published an article about Gloria Steinem, a prominent and highly influential woman involved in the women's rights movement for 40 years. The article talks about how the feminist movement relies solely on Gloria as their spokesperson, and how no one else has been able to replace her. As I said at the beginning of this paragraph: this novel merely mirrors life. In White Noise, there is not a single powerful female character. Let me describe some of the female characters in the book:
Babette: scared of death, obsessed with weight, and sleeps with another man to get what she wants.
Denise: Jack's daughter who is bossy yet extremely gullible and easily influenced. For instance, she adopts every symptom of what she hears on the radio that could be a result of exposure to the toxic cloud "'[Denise and her sister] get them only when they're broadcast" (129). In this case, "them" is whatever new symptom has been announced.
Steffie: Jack's other daughter who is like another Denise except sensitive. We do not really know very much about her but we know that her genes are not great because her mother has some issues.
Those are really the three main female characters, but combined they are still all less interesting than Jack, the main character. If novels are reflections of real life, can we expect there to be interesting, intelligent characters like Gloria Steinem when there is only one person like her? Except for Gloria Steinem, are women nothing but white noise?
