A Christmas Carol 331it dissolves in a slow and controlled fashion to
deliver its chemicals at a precise rate—she calls it
“a wonderful little system.” Throughout the novel,
characters demonstrate this mix of ignorance and
awe in the face of technology. Local sunsets have
been spectacular, for example, yet no one knows
why: One theory is that a toxic chemical spill has
left residue in the atmosphere; another is that the
microorganisms released to eat the original chemi-
cal cloud are themselves the residue affecting the
sunsets. No one knows.
The toxic chemical spill that may or may not be
affecting the sunsets is one of the novel’s primary
events. The chemical, Nyodene D, is a byproduct
of pesticides; Heinrich has been taught about it
in school, and the sum of knowledge about the
chemical is that it is “very dangerous, except no one
seem to know exactly what it causes in humans or
in the offspring of humans. They tested for years
and either they don’t know for sure or they know
and aren’t saying.” The entire incident displays the
degree to which we depend on technology as well
as the tenuous control we have over it, from the
train derailment that causes the spill to the failure
of responders to contain it, even to the failure of
Nyodene D’s creators to understand just what effects
their product has. When Gladney is exposed briefly
during the evacuation, technicians can tell him only
that his situation is vaguely serious, and if he lives
long enough, they will be able to tell him more
about it.
Characters in White Noise live a fragile exis-
tence alongside the technology they have created
and use but barely comprehend. Nyodene D is an
extreme example of the degree to which we do not
understand our technological creations, but De-
Lillo argues that it is not just the creators who are
to blame. In the midst of the evacuation, Heinrich
again lectures about humans’ reliance on technol-
ogy, observing that conditions are suddenly like
returning to the Stone Ages, where “we can’t even
tell people the basic principles much less actually
make something that would improve conditions.”
He mentions refrigerators and matches, mocks his
father’s explanation of radio waves moving through
the air because it sounds like magic, and ultimately
suggests that our shameful ignorance about the
nature of our technology makes us entirely depen-
dent on it. In the final analysis, technology in White
Noise is that which enables and enriches our lives but
threatens at the same time to destroy us; or, as one
character puts it, technology “creates an appetite for
immortality on the one hand. It threatens universal
extinction on the other.”
Michael LittleDICKENS, CHARLES A Christmas
Carol (1843)
A Christmas Carol is one of Charles Dickens’s most
popular works. It has been read, loved, and collected
by generations. More than 167 years since its pub-
lication, it still remains in fashion and is part of the
English-speaking world’s Christmas imagination.
Dickens (1812–70), the best-known novelist of
the Victorian age, wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843
and published it with illustrations by John Leech.
It was the first and most popular of five stories
on Christmas time: A Christmas Carol (1843), The
Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The
Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848).
These five stories were published together in 1852
in Christmas Books.
A Christmas Carol takes place in London, in a
very typical English atmosphere of cold and fog. The
main character is Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly busi-
nessman who prefers money to everything else and
lives alone, detesting all feelings and relationships
with others. He does not appreciate the Christmas
season at all, with its attendant feelings of joy and
love of family. The story begins on Christmas Eve,
the seventh anniversary of the death of Jacob Mar-
ley, Scrooge’s former business partner. During the
night, Scrooge receives the visit of Marley’s ghost
and the visits of three other spirits, the Ghosts of
Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Marley—who
represents Scrooge’s conscience and the conscience
of humankind—wants to give to his partner what he
did not have at the hour of his death, the possibility
of redemption. By the end of Scrooge’s long night,
he will come to learn the value of the holiday—and
indeed, the value of life itself.
Raffaella Cavalieri