Postmodern Paranoia: Conspiracy Theories as Network Anxieties in Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Underworld

Conspiracy theories find their way into a majority of Don DeLillo’s novels, ranging from rumors that reference pop culture to speculations with political consequences. While conspiracies can be found throughout a variety of time periods and cultures, I historicize the specific forms of paranoia that arise in DeLillo’s fiction. In White Noise, disturbances in smalltown America in the form of industrial waste spill are accelerated by mass media culture and lead to a family man’s conversion into an attempted murderer. Underworld sees the reliable concerns of the Cold War become untenable as the American empire expands and events like the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam War lead to more complicated forms of paranoia. The novel traces the full extent of nuclear weapons development, all the way to the destruction of nuclear waste products. It is in these depictions of post-1945 American paranoia that DeLillo engages with the feelings of fear and uncertainty that can result from postmodernity. Both novels show an awareness of global systems intruding into civilian life, forcing their characters to learn how to reorient themselves or fail and succumb to their paranoia. The re-emergence of previously hidden waste proves the conspiracy theorist’s dictum that “everything is connected” to be true. Drawing on DeLillo’s treatment of the topic, I will expand on the sorts of anxieties that these conspiracy theories expose and consider how a subject’s positionality influences their relationship to paranoia. This project also seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of conspiracy as a way of comprehending the world, as it can be both an exaggerated reaction to the uncertainties of postmodernity and a reasonable expression of cynicism toward obscured power structures.