an needs. As such, technology is neither as malevolent as DeLillo would suggest or as benign as its greatest supporters would have use believe. Technology and its values as well as its effects must be understood as taking on the shape and form that its human developers intend.
From DeLilloÆs (pp. 22û24) perspective, the ôreal worldö is a world in which the obvious is just that û obvious û and therefore identifiable as having an existence. He illustrates this belief in the conversation between Jack Gladney and his son, Heinrich, which focuses on whether or not it is actually raining outside of the car. Gladney asks his son if he cannot ôseeÆ the rain falling on the car windows; the boy refuses to commit himself to a positive or negative e response and rejects the information gained about the world through oneÆs senses. As Heinrich puts it: ôOur senses are wrong a lot more often than theyÆre right. This has been proved in the laboratory. DonÆt you know about all those theorems that say nothing is what it seems? ThereÆs no past, present or future outside our own mind (p. 23).ö
In other words, there are two visions of the ôreal worldö presented in the book. Gladney, a man just over fifty years old, believes that what his senses record or apprehend is real. His son, from a much younger generation (and a generation brought up with access to more and more sophisticated technologies) believes that even ôtruthö means nothing (p. 23). These two different views of what constitutes reality and what constitutes truth tend to dominate the novel, in which unknown conflicting forces rush toward death.
The boons or advantages that are associated with technology include things described by DeLillo (p. 10) as ôavant gardeö and consisting of processed food products, movies, television itself in some manifestations, pharmaceuticals produced by technological breakthroughs, and other elements absorbed into the wor...