In the late 20th century, foreign commentators gave many mixed comments on White Noise. Bruee Bawer denounces the novel that “if you want your novel to be filled with Philosophical McDonald, you will like this novel because it takes the whole American society as a giant Photographer”. Jonathan Yardley criticizes that “if you are a lover of poems, this novel will be a journey for you, but the problem lies in the fact that when you look back, you will find that it will get nowhere”. By contrast, Tom LeClair points out that “Delillo’s novels avoid the traditional plot because he wants to expose the openness and mutual-benefit of social system”. Thomas Disch regards this novel as “a collection of the most interesting and satisfying New York Cartoons”.
Though acclaimed as a literary giant in America, Don Delillo is still unfamiliar to Chinese readers at that time. Chinese researchers did not pay much attention to Don DeLillo and his White Noise until the late 1990s when Chinese scholars began to be interested in him. In 1995, Lu Shuyuan made a comment on White Noise. Later on, more researchers including Zhu Ye, Fang Cheng and Yang Renjing study Don Delillo and his works, analyzing the various themes of consumerism, naturism and ecological consciousness. Compared with other works of Don Delillo, more researches are devoted to White Noise. In 2006, Wu Aihua’s Master degree’s thesis The Phenomenon of the Consumer Society Embodied in White Noise analyzed the novel from the angel of consumer society. In 2008, Zhang Lidan’s Master degree’s thesis Religious Chaos in Don Delillo’s White Noise gave an analysis of the living crisis and religious chaos existing in White Noise.
The previous studies of White Noise mainly focus on its postmodern society, narrative style, and the influences of mass media and consumer culture on the society. From the current development trend, more attention will be paid to writing skills of the novel. On the basis of previous research, this paper focuses on analyzing the fear of death reflecting postmodernism characteristics in White Noise. In the following part, the writer will research the characters’ fear of death, their rebellion as well as the reasons for fear of death. The development of the post-modern society, such as boom of the supermarkets, the development of mass media and the advanced science and technology, all of these bring the spiritual noise to people. In general, the phenomenon of fear of death in White Noise is caused by the development of post-modern society, such as consumerism, mass media and loss of faith. Through analyzing fear of death in White Noise, modern people will gain a warning that on their way to pursue development, they should consider the possible serious effects on human spirit in the development of industrial society.
The main characters in White Noise were Jack Gladney and his wife Babette, and their children by previous four marriages; they live in Middle East America together. They live in a college town where Jack is a Professor of Hitler Studies. Jack is chairman of the department of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. He invented Hitler studies in North America in March of 1968. Jack has married for four times, so he had four wives in all, and now he lives with Babette who is his first wife. In this novel, Babette is the female hero. She is tall and a little fat, who is a good wife and a loving mother. She “teaches a course in an adult education program, and belongs to a group of volunteers who read to the blind.” The couple loves each other, and they have four children with them, that are Denise, Steffeie, Heinrich, and Wilder. Denise and Steffie were girls, Heinrich is a fourteen-year old boy, and Wilder is a two-year-old child. They all come from previous marriages. The four children were living together under the same roof with their step-father or step-mother.
White Noise contains three parts and 40 chapters. The first part is “Waves and Radiation”, describing the everyday life of the middle-aged couple, namely Jack Gladney and his wife Babette.The second part is “airborne toxic event”, describing an  toxic chemical waste spill incident and  residents’ escaping the disaster. Whether it is fatal to Jack is unclear. This part mainly describes people’s evacuation after the toxic fumes were exposed. People’s panic and fear when in the face of misfortune is vividly described in this chapter. The third part is “Dylarama”, mainly talking about people’s fear of death after disaster and other mental activities. “Dylarama is a compound word made by DeLillo. It is consist of the name of the medicine, “Dylar”, which can remove the fear of death, and the word “drama”. So, Dylarama means the drama caused by Dylar. Willie Mink, the inventor of Dylar, has illegally given Babette tablets in return for sexual favors in a motel. After Jack discovers this, he seeks revenge on Mink with a handgun. Jack shots him, but he sends him to the hospital at last”(206;ch.25). 浅析《白噪音》中后现代主义特点(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_18486.html