Waiting for WiFi: Survival and Digital Consciousness in Don DeLillo’s The Silence
Bildiriler > Özet Bildiri · 2022
Yazarlar: Olena BOYLU
18th International Cultural Symposium: Ageing, Surviving and Longevity, Türkiye, İzmir, Uluslararası, Sözlü Sunum, Özet Bildiri, 2022-2022, ss 59-59
Özet
<p>According to Ralph Waldo Emerson ―Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.‖ The reciprocal relationship of progress and regress, which is stressed by the author in his ―Self-Reliance‖ (1841), is the most compelling and controversial characteristic of society even in the 21st century, i.e. the age of information technology. Living in a world where every kind of product, service or information are easily available, inevitably pushes people to believe in their superiority, quasi-power, and invincibility while the destruction of such an illusion lies basically in a simple and sudden disconnection from the outer world. Precisely this kind of an apocalyptic atmosphere is explored by one of the most outstanding postmodern American writers, Don DeLillo, who in his latest short novel The Silence (2020) projects us the ambience of 2022 New York during a blackout. The author recreates a timely representation of our daily life with its domineering digital consciousness that surreptitiously reigns over us. Through the Beckettian atmosphere, DeLillo projects not just the absurdity of the 21st century life but also the desperate position of a human being in a seemingly abundant environment. Evaluating the effects of physical/technical disconnection on our digital consciousness clearly reveals our mental disconnection from our selves and our lives, while emphasizing a significant gap in our survival instincts</p>