Passage 171 · 1985
"White Noise"
Main effectThrough passive rearrangement removing agency, vague one-day timing, negative without-warning, existential there-is construction, escalating agitation-and-panic coordination, spatial in-aisles/in-faces mapping, and genitive older-shoppers specification, DeLillo creates syntax of postmodern dislocation—grammar that treats consumer disruption with language of catastrophe, satirizing how loss of familiar brands generates existential crisis.
Device index
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Tropes
Exaggeration.
Schemes
Repetition at beginning.
Verb governing different objects.
Syntax
"The supermarket shelves have been rearranged"—present perfect passive. Syntax removes agency from change.
"one day"—indefinite temporal phrase. Syntax refuses specificity about when.
"without warning"—negative prepositional phrase. Syntax emphasizes suddenness.
"There is agitation and panic"—existential subject. Syntax presents emotions as environmental conditions.
"agitation and panic"—two nouns coordinated. Syntax escalates from unease to fear.
"in the aisles"—spatial preposition. Syntax places emotion geographically.
"dismay in the faces"—elliptical second existential. Syntax continues emotional mapping.
"of older shoppers"—possessive specifying group. Syntax identifies who suffers most.
Close reading
1Close Reading
Passive Rearrangement
"The supermarket shelves have been rearranged"—present perfect passive. Syntax removes agency from change.
Temporal Vagueness
"one day"—indefinite temporal phrase. Syntax refuses specificity about when.
Prepositional Condition
"without warning"—negative prepositional phrase. Syntax emphasizes suddenness.
Existential Construction
"There is agitation and panic"—existential subject. Syntax presents emotions as environmental conditions.
Coordinate Emotions
"agitation and panic"—two nouns coordinated. Syntax escalates from unease to fear.
Locative Prepositional
"in the aisles"—spatial preposition. Syntax places emotion geographically.
Parallel Existential
"dismay in the faces"—elliptical second existential. Syntax continues emotional mapping.
Genitive Specificity
"of older shoppers"—possessive specifying group. Syntax identifies who suffers most.
Stylistic Effect
Through passive rearrangement removing agency, vague one-day timing, negative without-warning, existential there-is construction, escalating agitation-and-panic coordination, spatial in-aisles/in-faces mapping, and genitive older-shoppers specification, DeLillo creates syntax of postmodern dislocation—grammar that treats consumer disruption with language of catastrophe, satirizing how loss of familiar brands generates existential crisis.