The Twilight Zone

How does Jack Gladney, the narrator of White Noise, understand history (and historiography) -- and, how does he try to argue the reader into understanding history (and historiography)? To answer that question of how Jack understands it is that he understands it by asking questions. He also does his observing as is well put in the opening of the story. He is creepily observing college kids moving onto campus and him and Babette enjoys observing them. He gives a revelation of buildings that used to be in places around the campus and changes from his days to today. He also has an obsession it seems like with Hitler. The quote I got was on page 16, “The Chancellor warned against what he called my tendency to make a feeble presentation of self. He strongly suggested I gain weight. He wanted me to ‘grow out’ into Hitler.” He is not only teaching about Hitler, but he aspires to be him physically as close as possible. My second moment is on page 26, “When the showing ended, someone asked about the plot to kill Hitler. The discussion moved to plots in general. I found myself saying to the assembled heads, ‘All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorists plots, lovers’ plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children’s games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot.’ Literally, I feel like this would be considered a foreshadowing, but since we’re not suppose to look at it from a literature perspective, I would say that either Jack was possessed by the world spirit, because he asks inside his mind if this was true and why did he ask it, or that Jack views life and history with beginnings that has endings. My third moment is on page 45, “‘He now knows he won’t go down in history.’” I find that the passage belonging with this quote relates back to what I learned from the first day of class where we learned the concept of making history by killing someone famous or doing something really bad and being known for doing it. Maybe Jack’s son Heinrich believes in this theory because he’s keeping in touch with this guy from jail. Jack probably believes in something different. I guess he believes in Hitler and there was his talk about trying to turn the college to a Hitler community. I don’t feel like Jack is trying to argue the reader (me) into understanding history though. I just feel like he observes too much, has very few to say, may be a play boy considering multiple wives, and doesn’t really care about his kids considering the fumes from his kid’s school. If I were a parent, I would be suing the school or state for harm. Overall, Jack’s community, Blacksmith sounds like a strange place. I keep thinking about an episode from the Twilight Zone. I could talk more about the guy Murray on how he tries to understand history, but maybe for another day.