White Noise topic #5

Jack Gladney's stereotypical comments made during the suggested evacuation of his town expose a common grand narrative in American culture. Jack believes him and his family are safe from the black billowing cloud because the wind never blows in their direction. He judgmentally claims that since he is the head of a department at a college, he can't see himself "fleeing an airborne toxic effect." In his opinion, fleeing from these disasters are "for people who live in mobile homes out in the scrubby parts of the county." Gladney is conveying a claim that really isn't true or proven, but are accepted as a truth by the public because of how often it is true. His claim is part of a postmodernism theme of exposing these socially accepted truths that are realistically false.