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The characters in the novel that exemplify this over-dependence appear humorous on one hand, yet tragic on the other. The humor comes from the novel's characters behaving like cartoon characters who continually get hurt, but keep coming back for more. The novel's characters keep getting hurt by false images, yet continue to believe in them, causing the reader to smack his or her head in astonishment. This also makes the characters tragic, however, since the reader cannot help feeling pity for them in their inability to find the truth. The book introduces the reader immediately to false images through the main character, Jack Gladney. He suggests that "there was an honesty inherent in bulkiness if it is just the right amount (7). People trust a certain amount of bulk in others." He mistakes a person's bulky image for a sign of that person's honesty. I have to wonder what will happen to that image if a bulky person violates Jack's trust. Perhaps an indication can be found when Murray tells Jack that a colleague of Murray's, Cotsakis, was lost in the surf off Malibu (169). Cotsakis weighed three hundred pounds. While not an actual violation of trust, this event causes Jack to pause for a minute. Perhaps Cotsakis' death, despite his bulk, gives Jack the impression that bulk is not a proper image to maintain since it does not prevent death. While the false image of bulk is a good starting point for the book, the false images get into full swing with Jack's description of the his university attire. Jack, as a department head, must wear a black academic robe while at the college. He likes the idea, especially the flourish that results from him checking his watch, saying, "Decorative gestures add romance to a life" (9). Jack, speaking of Hitler, says, "Some people put on a uniform and feel bigger, stronger, safer" (63). I believe he is also talking about himself. Then there is the matter of his name. Jack, at the advice of the chancellor, had changed his name to J.A.K. Gladney by inventing an extra initial. The chancellor also told him to gain weight to look more formidable. "He wanted me to ‘grow out’ into Hitler. If I could become more ugly, he seemed to be suggesting, it would help my career enormously" (17). Jack's false image is thus threefold: his name, his size and his dress. By projecting this image, Jack feels trustworthy, strong and important. Jack is not the only one projecting false images. Jack seems to be a magnet for those projecting false images. "It was curious how I kept stumbling into the company of lives in intelligence," he utters when pondering the fact that two of his ex-wives led secret lives (213). I have to wonder if his desire to project a false image attracts him (or makes him attractive) to those doing likewise. Jack had named his son Heinrich because "it was a forceful name, a strong name. It has a kind of authority" (63). Granted Heinrich had no control over his name at the time it was given to him. His name came as a result of the importance Jack places on the image of strength or authority. Heinrich now has to live up to that. Just as Jack had to grow out into Hitler, Heinrich has to grown out into his name. If he cannot, chances are he will have to create a false image that does so. Then there is Denise, who is always wearing a green visor. "Something about the visor seemed to speak to her, to offer wholeness and identity," Jack says (37). The green visor thus becomes her image. Now when people think of a green visor, they automatically think of Denise. Problems could arise, however, if someone else began wearing a green visor too. She will have to find something else to wear. Next is Heinrich's friend, Orest Mercator. Jack believes that Orest "was creating an imperial self out of some tabloid aspiration. He would train relentlessly, speak of himself in the third person, load up on carbohydrates. His trainer was always there, his friends drawn to the aura of inspired risk" (268). Orest clearly has an image problem if he feels he has to sit in a room with poisonous snakes in order to get attention. He is so desperate for an image that he is willing to die. Or perhaps the image he wants is only attainable if he risks his own life. Either way, he is clearly not happy with his own self. Finally is Tweedy Browner, whose husband is a spy. She laments, "When Malcolm goes into deep cover, it's as though he never existed. He disappears not only here and now, but retroactively. No trace of the man remains. I don't know which half of Malcolm's life is real, which half is intelligence" (89). Her husband has the ultimate false image - one that turns him into a completely new person. At least the images of the others were built on what was already there, i.e., Jack's image partially came from his weight. In this case, however, what was already there for Malcolm, now and in the past, is eclipsed by his secret agent life. First, there is the matter of his robe. Eric Massingale tells Jack that without his campus attire he looks harmless. "A big, harmless, aging, indistinct sort of guy," Massingale says (83). Since Jack's image is false, it cannot be true all of the time. The problem arises when someone catches him out of his false image, because his true self has no power or authority. Thus, he must either keep up the facade as long as possible or avoid his colleagues when not properly dressed. This leads to an additional problem - love and friendship. I have often heard that in order to become a friend, you must make yourself vulnerable. You have to be willing to risk rejection in the hope of acceptance. Jack does not seem to want to do this, however. Jack says, "We all had an aura to maintain, and in sharing mine with a friend I was risking the very things that made me untouchable" (74). He is unwilling to let down his defenses and possibly let people see the "big, harmless" man underneath. Perhaps this is why he married two different women in intelligence - since they did not let their guards down, he did not have to either. Jack's false image is also an inconvenience, however. Because he has to appear strong and sure, he cannot deal with his shortcomings out in the open. For example, Jack does not know German. He has to learn for the Hitler conference, but his image forces him to keep his lessons secret (31-2). Again, he does not want to appear vulnerable. The end result is that his speech at the start of the Hitler conference is composed mainly of German words that sound the same in English. He spoke Hitler's name often, in hopes it would overpower his uncertain sentence structure. Later, he spent most of his time hiding in his office (274), probably because he shattered his own image by appearing weak and unsure of himself while fumbling through his speech. The good news is he is aware of his problem, saying, "I am the false character that follows the name around," (17) when discussing his name change. The bad news is that he does nothing to change his character to a true one. Jack is not the only one who goes into hiding when his image begins to crack. When Orest fails his attempt to break the record for sitting in a cage with snakes, he totally drops out of sight (298). This lends support to the earlier statement that Orest was extremely desperate for an image, and thus attention. Since his attempt failed, he is left devoid of any image but that of a failure. Jack's and Orest's cases show that the failure to live up to an image produces disastrous results for those projecting the image. This failure also has an adverse effect on those who receive the image. For example, Jack is devastated when Babette tells him about Gray Research, Dylar and her fear of death. He is shocked because she was not the woman he believed her to be (197). He only knew her through her false image and was thus unprepared to deal with the true Babette. Images can also be dangerous. For example, Jack's dark glasses may be causing him to see colored spots. He is wary to give them up, however, because the glasses are an integral part of the image around which his career is built (221). It is possible that Jack could go blind because of his refusal to change his image. In another case, SIMUVAC holds a practice disaster (204-7). If, in the practice, a real emergency occurs, it is to be ignored. In trying to produce the image of a disaster, SIMUVAC is putting lives in jeopardy. A more extreme example comes in the form of the airborne toxic event. Jack considers not evacuating because of his image. "These things don't happen in places like Blacksmith," he says (114). "I don't see myself fleeing an airborne toxic event. That's for people who live in mobile homes out in the scrubby parts of the country, where the fish hatcheries are" (117). Evacuating would be a sign of weakness for Jack, and thus would be bad for his image. Someday this could result in his death and the death of his family. Jack is not the only one that lets an image cloud his judgment in dealing with the toxic event. Babette, in trying to determine if they should evacuate, says, "Did you get the impression they were only making a suggestion or was it a little more mandatory, do you think?" Later, she says, "I'm sure there's plenty of time, or they would have made a point of telling us to hurry" (119). In this case, she has in her mind the image of a proper evacuation - one in which people are told to hurry. Since they were not explicitly told to hurry, she assumes they can take their time, which could prove fatal. The novel discusses at least one possible good thing about false images - they are entertaining. The example given is Jack going to get a trashy magazine from Heinrich's room, so Babette can read to him. He notices that the letters represent a double fantasy - "people write down imagined episodes and then see them published in a national magazine. Which is the greater stimulation?" (30). False images, then, are entertaining because they are more interesting than real life. This must be why Jack, Orest, et al., project false images. By themselves, they are nothing, but with their images, they can get people's attention. Many times the media creates false images. In one of the most obvious examples, Jack discusses the most photographed barn in America. It has now become impossible to "see" it. Murray says, "We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one" (12). We cannot tell what the barn originally looked like because we have been conditioned by the media that it is the most photographed barn in America. We are only supposed to see the photographed image of the barn, not the original barn. "We're part of the aura," Murray says (13). Since we cannot see the original barn, its image must be false. The media might also be partially responsible for Orest's desire to sit with poisonous snakes. Clearly it would have gotten him national attention. On a related note, the murderer to which Heinrich writes realizes that he should have done an assassination, because it would have gotten him more attention than six random murders (44-5). I guess he was not happy with his image as a mere murderer. He wanted the image of an assassin. The media could have made him into one. This is another example of how false images may be dangerous - by giving assassins attention, they may only encourage others to become assassins too. This might explain why Vernon, Babette's father, wants to know if people were that dumb before television (249). Howard Dunlop, the German instructor, was also influenced by the images the media presents. He says, "My mother's death had a terrible impact on me. Then one day by chance I saw a weather report on TV. A dynamic young man with a glowing pointer stood before a multicolored satellite photo, predicting the weather for the next five days. It was as though a message was being transmitted from the weather satellite through that young man and then to me in m canvas chair" (55). In this case, an image may have actually done some good. For the most part, however, the false images confuse those who see them. For example, on page 22 Heinrich says, "It's going to rain tonight." Jack says, "It's raining now." Heinrich replies, "The radio said tonight." I have been in this situation myself, so DeLillo must not be exaggerating here. Later Jack declares, "Just because it's on the radio doesn't mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our senses." For once, Jack takes the side of truth by not buying into the false images of the media. Later, during the toxic event, the family is listening to the news about the plume and its possible effects. When the symptoms go from sweaty palms to nausea, the girls just begin complaining of sweaty palms (112). Later, they get deja vu after the symptoms have changed from deja vu to convulsions, coma and miscarriage (125). "If Steffie had learned about deja vu on the radio but then missed the subsequent upgrading to more deadly conditions, it could mean she was in a position to be tricked by her own apparatus of suggestibility," (125) Jack says. Another obvious false image comes when Babette appears on television, which baffles the entire family. The face on the screen was Babette's. What did it mean? Was she dead, missing, disembodied? Was this her spirit, her secret self, some two-dimensional facsimile released by the power of technology...? Babette was teaching her class... Either she hadn't known there would be a camera on hand or she preferred not to tell us, out of embarrassment, love, superstition, whatever causes a person to wish to withhold her image from those who know her. It was the picture that mattered, the face in black and white, animated but also flat, distanced, sealed off, timeless. It was but wasn't her. She was shining a light on us, she was coming into being, endlessly being formed and reformed as the muscles in her face worked at smiling and speaking, as the electronic dots swarmed. Her image was projected on our bodies, swam in us and through us (104-5). A double image occurs here. Coming through the television screen is an image of Babette's false image. No wonder everyone is confused! The line "It was but wasn't her" is also important. It tells the reader that Jack saw a copy of his wife on the screen. This image is thus also false because it does not point back to the original Babette. Jack sees the image as a separate entity. This scene also shows technology's role in producing false images by reducing originals into mere data. This phenomenon starts early in life, as evidenced by Denise's behavior. In one scene, "she was transcribing names and phone numbers from an old book to a new one. There were no addresses. Her friends had phone numbers only, a race of people with a seven-bit analog consciousness" (41). Her friends exist only to the extent that they have telephone numbers. During the evacuation, Jack's history is reduced to computer data of big bracketed numbers with pulsing stars (140). He is not a person in the eyes of the medical technician. He is the total sum of his data (141). This scene also reinforces Jack's dependence on his false image, because he felt weak about the possibility of dying. Thus, he wanted his academic gown and dark glasses to create the image of a strong person (142). Ironically, it is the airborne toxic event that may teach people the importance of genuine images. Any false images generated from the toxic event were the responsibilities of the media and the people who believed in the media. The event itself actually creates a genuine image - the sunsets that resulted from the particles of Nyodyne D hanging in the atmosphere (170). None of the sunsets are copies of each other. The images of them point back to an original sunset. Still, though, I do not believe it will be enough to counteract the years of dependence on false images. DeLillo merely sets the problem on the table; he does not offer a solution. The airborne toxic event does not force people to see the problems associated with false images and instead strive for genuine images. The reader is meant to learn from the events of the novel what the characters could not realize - false images cause all sorts of problems for those who project them and for those who receive them. The characters, meanwhile, will continue to set up barriers between themselves and others and rely on the images fed to them by the media and other forms of technology. They will probably also turn the Nyodyne D sunsets into the most photographed sunsets in America, thus destroying yet another genuine image. Bibliography: Word Count: 2985
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