My "Work-in-Progress": Making Sense of Murray Jay Siskind Through a Gnostic Reading of Don DeLillo's White Noise and Amazons
Date
2023-03-18
Authors
Baldwin, Renata
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Abstract
Spirituality is a key focal point in American novelist Don DeLillo’s ongoing exploration of misinformation and uncertainty in postmodern America. This research focuses on Murray Jay Siskind, who appears as a prominent character in DeLillo’s Amazons and White Noise. Reading these works in tandem with The Nag Hammadi Scriptures and scholarly interpretations of Gnosticism illuminates Murray as a character who embodies the Gnostic values of intuition, enlightenment, and truth. Murray’s awareness of his own fictionality is the root of this gnosis and what identifies him as a source of spiritual authority for protagonists and readers in both texts.
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Keywords
Japonisme, tatooing, diaspora, Britain, Victorian, Edo