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Chapter 21 - The Environment

Postmodern Ecology in Don DeLillo’s Fiction

from Part V - Material Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2022

By
Elise Martucci
Edited by
Jesse Kavadlo
Jesse Kavadlo
Affiliation:
Maryville University of Saint Louis, Missouri
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Summary

“Postmodern Ecology in Don DeLillo’s Fiction” offers an ecocritical reading of DeLillo’s fiction through the lens of pastoralism, nature studies and apocalypse. Drawing from earlier discussion of ecology in DeLillo’s novel as well as from discussions of ecocrtiticism and place-based studies, this chapter focuses on several of DeLillo’s seminal works, White Noise, Underworld and Zero-K, along with his early short story “Creation” to demonstrate the presentation and evolution of environmental themes and messages throughout his oeuvre. By first looking at DeLillo’s inclusion and inversion of the tradition of pastoral in fiction and then moving towards a consideration of the trope of apocalypse, the chapter aims to prove how DeLillo makes an argument for place-based consciousness and environmental awareness and responsibility throughout his fiction.

Keywords

Don DeLillopostmodernismecologyplacepastoralecocriticsmapocalypsenature
Type
Chapter
Information
Don DeLillo In Context , pp. 196 - 206
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Works Cited

Buell, Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Blackwell, 2005.Google Scholar
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DeLillo, Don. “Creation” The Angel Esmeralda Nine Stories. Simon & Schuster, 2011.Google Scholar
DeLillo, Don. Underworld. Scribner, 1997.Google Scholar
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Glavanakova, Alexandra K. “The Age of Humans Meets Posthumanism: Reflections on Don DeLillo’s Zero K.” Studies in the Literary Imagination, 1, 2017: 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jandl, Nathan. “Sustainable Affect: The Social Dimensions of Environmental Attachment in DeLillo’s White Noise.” Modern Philology, vol. 114.2, Nov. 2016: 433–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moses, Michael Valdez. “Lust Removed From Nature.” In New Essays on White Noise. Edited by Lentricchia, Frank. Cambridge University Press, 1991: 63–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Dana. “Don DeLillo’s Postmodern Pastoral.” In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Edited by Hunter, Jeffrey W., vol. 143, Gale, 2001. Originally published in Reading the Earth: New Directions in the Study of Literature and Environment, edited by Michael P. Branch, et al., University of Idaho Press, 1998: 235–246.Google Scholar
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