It Is For Others. Not For Us: Belief in Don Delillo's White Noise
By: Suzy Petersen
Religion is as varied as the organizations that claim praise to it. In Don Delillo's novel White Noise the concept of religion is a subtle, yet main point to the story. Jack Gladney is the main character who is the Chairman of Hitler Studies at the College-on-the Hill. This first detail about him already gives us an indication of how religion already plays a role in his life. Of all the courses he could teach, or be incredibly knowledgeable in, Jack chose Hitler studies. The study of a man who killed millions of people because of their religion. The subtle hints and jabs at religion continue throughout the book until we come to the climax scene when Jack talks face to face with a Catholic nun. Though the story does not take religion on directly, it does bring up several good points.
Delillo suggests in many ways that there are those that believe in organized religion and have to keep that faith to make it through the day. He also talks extensively about those that do not believe in organized religion, but have a belief system outside of it.
As the story comes to it's climax, Jack's reaction to life and the challenges that he faces cause him to draw on what he truly believes in, and what gets him through the day. Jack talks to a Catholic Nun, named Sister Hermann, about belief and what it really means.
Jack does not believe in organized religion, but finds himself at a Catholic church while contemplating all that has happened in his life. Just like Jack's ties to his family and his fear of death, the places he “worships” are unique to him. In an article titled “Praying to Stop Being Atheist” T.J. Mawson points out the idea that even people who claim to have no belief system are struggling to believe in something just as much as someone who claims to have one. He gives an analogy that fits in quite well with Jack and his belief system, “I suggest that the person who prays that God help him or her to believe in Him is as reasonable as someone who finds himself or herself shouting ‘Is anyone there?’ in a darkened room about which he or she has various reasonable prior beliefs. This is a room about the other occupier of which, if any, he or she has heard some controversy.” (174). In many ways Jack is like the person shouting if anyone is there. In many ways, he has determined that there is not a higher power that is unique to any organized religion, but by the time Jack sits down with Sister Hermann, and especially after he talks to her, he realizes exactly what his belief system is. And it's not that religion is wrong, but that his belief lies in other things. His belief lies in his family. In the experiences he is a part of collectively with others and on his own. His belief comes from the “white noise” that is all around him.
That is why he hides behind his logic and education. He recognizes that there are those that believe, and he even understands that there needs to be believers in the world. After shooting the man Jack's wife, Babette, had an affair with, Jack found and shot him. Afterwards, Jack takes him to a Catholic church where the nuns see to Mr. Gray and Jack finds himself having a very eye opening experience with one of the nuns.
Jack's search for understanding comes when he talks to a Sister Hermann. Jack walks into the church having some knowledge of people that believe in God and religion, but never having really talked to them himself. Sister Hermann opens his eyes and welcomes him to a new way of thinking. She is like the voice that answers back to that lost soul in the room shouting if there is anyone out there. But her answer is not what might initially come to mind. She doesn't jump up and profess that there is an Almighty God above that is guiding our lives. Instead, she shows him that he is not alone.
They discuss what believing in something really means, and Sister Hermann completely shakes his way of thinking when she says, “It is for others. Not for us” (303). That is the first real indication Jack is given that belief and religion are all a mere illusion and that it is not what others believe in, but what the individual believes. The idea that a nun doesn't actually believe in the organized religion she professes is mind blowing and life altering for Jack. He tries to comprehend and understand, which is something everyone must do at some point. Sister Hermann continues with “All the others. The others who spend their lives believing that we still believe. It is our task in the world to believe things no one else takes seriously. To abandon such beliefs completely, the human race would die. That is why we are here.” (303). Jack is finally faced with a real question that he has been avoiding for his whole life. What does he believe in, and why? Jack is the Hitler studies guy, he is the father, step-father, husband. He has all these titles, but none of them give him real substance in life. Jack is pushed against the wall of belief and must decide for himself what he truly believes.
Jack recognizes specific aspects of his life that are his religion, when talking to Sister Hermann, he realizes as she is shouting at him in German that even though he didn't understand what she was saying, she was teaching him a lesson about religion and life. Jack thinks, “She said something in German. I failed to understand. She spoke again, at some length, pressing her face toward mine, the words growing harsher, wetter, more gutteral. Her eyes showed a terrible delight in my incomprehension...The odd thing is I found it beautiful.” (305) This is where Jack makes the connection for himself that religion is more of a feeling than a specific denomination. That he does have a belief system outside of the organized religions around him. This is the moment that belief in something greater than himself makes itself known. He has all these religious experiences and all these places of worship throughout his life, but he has always relied on other people to believe in something beyond himself. For the first time in his life, he is faced with the idea that belief is something more than a nun living her life in a church. More than himself. More than the world around him.
Religion creates a new place for itself in Jack's life. Not with a specific denomination, but in his realization that religion is more than a church and set commandments. Before Jack ends his conversation with his nun, he questions her logic as he tries to wrap his head around the idea of a nun that doesn't actually believe in God or the organized religion she follows so strongly. To her, he says, “There must be some of you who aren't pretending, who truly believe. I know there are. Centuries of belief don't just peter out in a few years. There were whole fields of study devoted to these subjects. Angelology. A branch of theology just for angels. A science of Angels.” (305) Jack tries to understand religion through other mediums, mostly scholarly. He has spent his life avoiding uncomfortable situations and a lack of understanding. He hides behind his dark sunglasses and academic robes. He teaches Hitler studies but doesn't teach about the history that Hitler is infamous for. Instead, he humanizes Hitler, almost making him likable. Of course Jack would try to use logic to explain to a nun why she needs to believe in God. To him it makes sense. Faith and religion are not something Jack can see or understand, so he has to use the ideas and beliefs he does understand to try and explain to her. So, instead of discussing that Sister Hermann should believe because devotion is expected from people living the life of a nun, he tells her that she must believe because scientifically it is important. He is looking at it from a very scholarly point of view, instead of a theological point of view. He is trying to find logic in an illogical belief.
The nun never actually says what she believes, but she does ask if Jack wants to know, or just pretends to believe, showing that there is a difference between the two. Sister Hermann counters with “Our pretense is a dedication. Someone must appear to believe....Hell is when no one believes”. (304) As Jack returns home from his eventful evening with Mr. Gray and Sister Hermann, he goes upstairs. “I went upstairs and watched the kids a while. All asleep, fumbling through dreams, eyes rapidly moving beneath closed lids.” (305) For Jack, this is a religious experience. He goes home and takes comfort in those things that are both religious and safe to him. He wants to believe in the future, he wants to have hope; that is why he holds the things he does in such esteem. He knows that he needs to believe in something, just like the nun pretends to believe.
In her way, Sister Hermann shows Jack that belief is something beyond the individual. It is a collective idea that spreads through every aspect of life. She is a nun that doesn't truly believe all that people assume she does. She “believes” for the benefit of others. Like she says, “ It is for others. Not for us” (303). The difference between her religion and Jack's is that she does it for others, whereas Jack is doing everything for himself. He is still trying to figure out what he believes and why. It isn't until after they talk that you really see Jack adjust his train of thought and think about what he believes and why.
As this scene, and subsequently the novel, come to a close the rhythm of life for Jack is altered. He takes those ideals and the people he does believe in and holds tight to them, He isn't the same person he was from the beginning. He can no longer sit idly by and wonder what life holds for him. We see this at the end of the novel when he and Babbette take Wilder to the park. Jack looks at the people and instead of looking for data and logic, looks at them as people (Delillo, 308). We really see the change as he notices the men in Mylex suits. He comments, “The men in Mylex suits are still in the area, yellow-snouted, gathering their terrible data, aiming their infrared devices at the earth and sky. Dr. Chakravarty wants to talk to me but I am making a point to stay away” (309). Even Jack's trips to the grocery store have been altered. He comments on how the shelves have been switched and people are in chaos. The Jack Gladney from the beginning of the book would have been with the rest of the people wondering what it meant and how this could have happened, instead we see him move along and notice the others reactions. Of the people he sees, Jack comments, “they try to work their way through confusion. But in the end it doesn't matter what they see or think they see.” (310). There is a finality in the tone of the book and Delillo shows us that Jack is no longer another face in the crowd. After all is said and done, he has gained knowledge that can't be returned. For better or worse, Jack's world has crashed a little bit and he is faced with the truth that belief and religion are a part of everyone's lives, and also that what other people believe in does affect those around you.
We don't see Jack's change overnight, and in a lot of ways it doesn't come until a drastic change that he is forced to see a new way of life. The necessity to believe in something is clear throughout the book and we understand Jack's belief system by the end of the book. Like most people in the world today, Jack had to question his beliefs in order to better understand what he wanted out of them. If he hadn't thought he could lose his children by his exposure to the Airborn Toxic Event, or had to leave his home he might not have ever come to the conclusion he does by the end of the novel. And, if Sister Hermann hadn't asked him to question not only his beliefs, but hers as well, he wouldn't have had reason to question them. He could have easily rationed away any doubts with logic and secular understanding. He would have left the religious knowledge and belief to those who he felt truly believed. If he hadn't faced the thought that no one actually believes in God and angels, he would have never had reason to question what he believed or why. Sister Hermann brings up an excellent point that if no one believed it would be Hell. This is interesting because if there is no heaven, why is there hell? And if everyone is just pretending to believe, what is the point of it all? Jerry Versava argues the decline of belief in anything in his article titled “Unmanageable Realities in Post Modern America”, he states “Over the last nearly two centuries, there has been a gradual, though inexorable, erosion of faith in individual human agency. Germinal thinkers like Darwin, Marx, Freud, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Lacan, Luhmarm, White, and Kuhn have in their respective disciplines demonstrated the instrumentality of determinisms that are beyond the control of individual agency (165). He argues that people are losing their belief system in organized religion. People are losing sight of those unseen truths and principals and depending solely on ideas that can be proven or seem logical. The concept of faith in an organized religion has started to fade not only from popularity, but from life in general.
At the end of the novel, we see that Jack has turned more towards those ideas that keep him going each day. The minute details that often go ignored are what have created Jack's belief system. He spends time with his family and goes to the grocery store. It is what keeps his world moving. His children are the hope he has for the future. He knows that they are a constant in his life and he can depend on them when he does question everything else. Like many people in the world, Jack had to come to an understanding for himself, and like the analogy, even those that claim to not believe can still walk into the dark room and ask if anyone can hear them. Whether we hear a response or not depends on our willingness to listen and act on it. Even those that choose not to believe in anything will eventually have to face that wall of belief and, like Jack, they must decide what they want to do with that knowledge. It is a choice. It is a challenge. It is a fact we all will face at some point in our lives. It is up to us, like Jack, to decide what is really important in life and hold on to it no matter the storm or Airborn Toxic Event that tries to move us.
Works Cited
Delillo, Don. White Noise. New York City: Penguin Group, 1985. Print.
Kohn, Robert E. "Tibetan Buddhism In Don Delillo's Novels: The Street, The Word And The Soul." College Literature 38.4 (2011): 156-180. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Apr. 2012.
Mawson, T. "Praying To Stop Being An Atheist." International Journal For Philosophy Of Religion 67.3 (2010): 173-186. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Apr. 2012.
Varsava, Jerry. "Unmanageable Realities In Postmodern America." Canadian Review Of American S Studies 33.2 (2003): 161-171. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Apr. 2012.