Don DeLillo’s Underworld: Systems, Loops, and Contradictions

• Main Author: Larsen, Victor Bo
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English

This thesis attempts to continue Tom LeClair's studies on a critical genre of fiction named the systems novel. The thesis specifically analyzes Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo, which has yet to be analyzed within LeClair's paradigm. Through engaging with LeClair's categorizations, scholarly arguments on DeLillo's writing, and expansions into extraliterary fields of theorizations of the contemporary world, the thesis uses close reading of specific parts of the novel that relates to systems and systems theory. It simultaneously attempts to configure the master system that the novel conveys by looking at its larger structures as a whole. Emerging from this comes a loop and network pattern that LeClair has also argued to be an integral part of DeLillo's fiction. As the systems novel concerns itself with representations of humans in their ecosystem, acting according to its laws, the thesis has paid close attention to the noise in the characters’ communication loops and self-referential frames. Close reading passages that represented elements of loops and self-referentiality enabled an argument to be made that parts of the novel dictated the way the reader should approach the novel's representations to uncover its themes. Additionally, investigating the cultural understanding of criminal networks persists throughout specific characters' environments, becoming a symbol of noise, corruption, and survival. Finally, DeLillo proposes an immanent critique of the neoliberalist economy through the novel’s epilogue. By closely reading the contradictions that emerge in the chapter, an argument appears for hope for fiction in a digital world. While this thesis is limited to a smaller account of systems theory, there is potential for this study to be expanded into a larger theoretical framework.