Signs: Print, Image, and Digital Media in DeLillo

In the epoch of global capitalism, writers must be hypervigilant to the usage of their medium of choice –the written, printed word – readily aware of the proliferation of the grapheme and the saturation of visual signage in the media environment. Product advertisements that once depended on the enlarged-type appeal of slogans invariably stating the brand name have given way to an iconic Esperanto, equally legible to anyone around the globe. As a literary author, Don DeLillo recognizes that the image in our visual culture has become the dominant medium of our time. Despite this displacement of the writer from a central position in mass culture, DeLillo’s novels, such as White Noise, Mao II, and Underworld offer considerations as to how the post-war author might evade absorption by visual media and global capitalism, and whether it is possible to maintain a resistant, if marginalized, position in society.