Select two essays from the Rivkin and Ryan Reader. Type out one quotation from each of the essays which you think encapsulates the essay's key ideas. Write a commentary of about 250 words on each

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Devi Rama                                           Foundations of Modern Literary Studies

Select two essays from the Rivkin and Ryan Reader. Type out one quotation from each of the essays which you think encapsulates the essay’s key ideas. Write a commentary of about 250 words on each quotation explaining what you understand from the quotation and a brief summary of the ideas which it reacts against. Then offer a detailed and in-depth analysis of (aspects of) White Noise based upon your chose quotations.

“Truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions.” This quotation is taken from Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense. The meaning of this quotation is that there is no reality. This is because we are imposing our ideas and concepts to reality and our truths are actually illusions. These illusions have been imposed so much that we have forgotten that they are in fact illusions that we have created. Therefore there is no real truth or reality. We impose our own ideas which become our truths when in fact there is no truth because our truth has been made up of illusions.

        The key idea of Nietzsche’s essays on this subject is the idea that language is not adequate for reality. It is just an attempt to tame the untamable. There is just too much diversity in reality for language to cover it. The way language tries to classify objects is not adequate. The example used is of leaves. We call a leaf using the term leaf but there are lots of different leaves and yet we do not have a name for each different leaf. This is therefore showing the complex nature of reality.

Nietzsche’s ideas are reacting against ‘The Enlightenment period.’ Enlightenment was the “confidence in the ability of human beings to understand the world.” During this period in history people had confidence in their knowledge. It was when Science was significant. Nietzsche’s ideas challenge that confidence by saying that what we call knowledge is not in fact knowledge at all; it is just an attempt to control the uncontrollable diversity of reality. Overall reality is too complex and chaotic to assert any kind of control over.

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Some of Nietzsche’s principles can be applies to the novel White Noise written by Don DeLillo. These can be applied in different ways. For example Nietzsche’s work reacts against The Enlightenment. Depending on how what perspective it is looked at White Noise can be read as a post-enlightenment novel. Direct parallels can also be made between Nietzsche’s ideas and the novel.

In the novel at the end of chapter ten Jack walks to the cash point at the bank to check his balance. The machine, the way it works and the bank is referred to as ‘the system.’ The system has ...

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