Underworld

“I don’t know about empty—planes that used to carry nuclear bombs, ta-da, ta-da, out across the world.”

The planes from the Cold War may no longer have their bombs. They may never have dropped their bombs. But they fascinate Klara because they are relics, invested with the apocalyptic destructive potential that was never released or resolved. They are unfired weapons, bristling with the memory of potency. By redecorating the planes, Klara hopes to recontextualize these weapons of war and show people that they are more than just drab gray skeletons that have been abandoned in the desert.

“I noticed how people played at being executives while actually holding executive positions.”

In his professional life, Nick notices how much of social interaction is actually a performance. People are so alienated from their societal roles that they “play at” being themselves. Just like Nick, they are struck by the nagging feeling that there is something unreal and performative about modern existence, yet they perpetuate this feeling with their cynical performance of what society expects them to be. They are beholden to Social Alienation and unable to escape.

“You’re interfering by watching.”

Marian resents her husband’s gaze. By watching, he alters her existence and makes her feel as though she cannot act naturally. Even his watching a movie beside her alters her relationship to the movie. Marian, like many characters, feels a sense of loneliness and alienation that she can only identify through her resentment of others. She does not want to be watched, nor to watch something alongside someone. Observation implies judgment, either of the film or of Marian’s character. She desires neither.

“This is something I’ve always wanted to do without knowing it exactly.”

Marian is alienated from her own desires, unable to put into words a deep longing that she has always felt. She could not voice her desire for the quiet, weightless experience of the hot-air balloon because her regular life features nothing of the sort. Only by having the experience imposed on her in a surprise fashion is she able to unlock some part of herself that she felt but could not define. Language and society fail Marian; only firsthand experience can give expression to her true feelings.

“It is the camera that puts her in the tale.”

The act of filming gives an extra dimension to the video that supposedly depicts the Texas Highway Killer. That the video was filmed by a child gives the story a new angle. The killer is taking not only the victim’s life but also the child’s innocence. The child’s role in bearing witness to a terrible act of violence throws into sharp relief a brutality that might not otherwise register to its jaded viewers.

“Point of reference. Because other forces will come rushing in, demanding and challenging. The cold war is your friend.”

Marvin tells Brian that the Cold War is a necessity that gives aimless Americans a sense of meaning and direction. Without the existential threat posed by the Cold War, society lacks a purpose or a goal. People begin to feel like the unused weapons rusting in the desert. Marvin accurately predicts the inevitable alienation brought about by victory.

“When they get their terms outside the dictionary, it means they’re telling you goodbye.”

Marvin notes that his tumor exists beyond the clear boundaries of medical definition. Since doctors are not able to name the disease, he cannot beat it. He is facing an amorphous, undefinable foe. Like the characters whose social alienation is crystalized by their inability to express it verbally, Marvin recognizes the inevitability of his death in the form of his inability to describe exactly what will kill him.

“Nick was always the subject, ultimately.”

Matt’s conversation with his mother ironically hints at the way in which character dynamics shape the structure of the novel. For all intents and purposes, Nick is the protagonist. Though many aspects of the novel do not involve him, he is the thread that ties their stories together. In a metatextual sense, he is the subject of the novel in that he functions as a cipher for social alienation in late-20th-century America. Nick is the subject, but he is also the lens through which DeLillo explores American society as a whole.

“Most jobs are fake.”

Like many of the characters, Brian is searching for a way to express his alienation. The jobs of other people seem fake or unreal, while he feels deeply uncomfortable with his own role in society. The difference between Brian being able to acknowledge his own alienation and only being able to diagnose it in others is the difference between him being able to tell that all, rather than just most, jobs are social constructs that only have importance because people invest them with meaning.

“But I knew I was right to abandon English.”

Speaking to Donna, Nick tries to explain why he feels a particular way about the world. He cannot describe this feeling in English, so he switches to Italian, a language that has more meaning for him as a link to his absent father. By using Italian to express his dissatisfaction with the world, he is subconsciously linking this dissatisfaction to memories of his father and to the emotional void that his father’s absence created.

“But in this case the husband had to take extreme precautions because the odor was shameful.”

Marvin takes drastic measures to hide the increasingly fetid stench of his bowel movements from his wife. Even though they are on their honeymoon, he is already trying to hide a private part of himself from her. The smell is no fault of his own, but it is a product of the journey he has planned for them. He feels shame, not just for the smell but for dragging his new wife across half a continent on a mission to find his long-lost half brother. The smell is the manifestation of Marvin’s guilt, which he tries to hide from Eleanor.

“Pain is just another form of information.”

Nick is overwhelmed by information. There is so much information in modern life that the true details get lost in the noise. Likewise, there is so much pain in his life that it simply becomes more “static.” The pain of his past, the trauma he has experienced, and physical pain mix together in a single, overwhelming force. This deluge of pain is such that Nick struggles to pinpoint the exact causes of his pain and feels numb to everything.

“I sometimes wonder what money is.”

While talking to Carlo Strasser, Klara hints at the idea of money as a social construct. Notes and coins have no real intrinsic value. Rather, money is a metaphor, an ever-changing reflection of the economic health of a nation-state. Money is the day-to-day currency that passes between people but also a larger, more abstract notion that is far too vast and nuanced to comprehend. Here Klara is touching more broadly on the hidden mechanisms of society, which people recognize but lack the language to define.

“The bombheads loved their work but they weren’t necessarily pro-bomb.”

The military researchers who develop the weapons are able to separate their work from the actual results of their work. They are distantly aware that their bombs are designed to kill people with maximum efficiency, but the isolated and remote nature of their research facility allows them to view their work in the abstract. They see their work as a science project or a puzzle, not something real, with real consequences.

“This is what happens when part of a system’s output is returned to the input.”

Matt’s experience in Vietnam lays the foundation for his growing distrust of his work. He knows what the weapons do, as he has seen them in action. Unlike his colleagues, he can no longer deny the real impact of his weapons on the world. The horrors of war return home with him, shaping American society. The system output of American foreign policy (the Vietnam War) is returned, becoming a social input (Matt’s traumatic experiences), which affect the progress of society itself (weapons development).

“She changed her name from Bronzini back to Sachs but made a point of spelling it with an x.”

Klara’s identity evolves in a literal way, reflecting her changing understanding of herself. Klara is not returning to her old, pre-marriage identity. She is becoming something new, and she understands this. She will keep her maiden name but spell it differently, asserting agency over the identity that has been imposed on her by either birth or marriage. Unlike Klara Sachs or Klara Bronzini, Klara Sax chooses her name and her identity.

“We weren’t worth much if the system designed to contain us kept breaking down.”

During his incarceration, Nick craves punishment. He begins to see the system responsible for rehabilitating or punishing him as failing in its duty. The prison system, in this sense, functions as a metaphor for wider society. The Cold War, the Vietnam War, and social alienation are all signs that the “system” of American life is on the verge of breaking down. Society, like prison, is not worth much if it cannot support its stated goals, Nick feels.

“The spectacle’s so dazzling they can’t take it all in.”

Lenny’s act is heavy on spectacle by design, reflecting American society back to itself. The political spectacle of the Kennedys and the fear-inducing spectacle of the Cuban Missile Crisis are dazzling in similar ways. Like Lenny on stage, the public’s attention is drawn in so many directions that it loses focus and becomes unable to see the smaller details. The audience—and the population in general—are so inundated with empty spectacle that they can’t engage with anything in a meaningful way.

“Conflict. The nature of his desire and the unremitting attempts he made to expose homosexuals in the government.”

Hoover, rather than empathizing with people with similar sexualities, congratulates himself for denying his own desires. His repressed sexuality drives his homophobia. He sees gay people as weak for being unable to stifle their desires as he has done. Such people should not be permitted in the government, he believes. In this way, Hoover turns his hypocritical self-denial into a deluded act of patriotism.

“Or maybe Greenland was just a delicate piece of war-gaming played in a well-heated room in some defense institute, with hazelnut coffee and croissants.”

While flying in a bomber, Chuckie unwittingly echoes his father’s comments about the unreality of Greenland. In a different time and place, Chuckie’s father said to his mother that Greenland may not exist. Chuckie is seemingly unaware of this conversation, but his own thoughts about Greenland suggest that he is not as different from his father as he believes himself to be. They frame their suspicions differently—Chuckie using more militaristic terms—but the fundamental similarity between Charles and Chuckie is clear.

“I just want to screw.”

In his conversation with Bronzini, Father Paulus reveals a hidden sexual drive, which makes Bronzini laugh. Just like lay people, the priest has sexual desires. The unexpectedness of this comment hints at the existence of hidden truths in the world. The priest is a member of a celibate order but he hides his sexual desires behind a veil of social expectation and institutional power. Like conspiracies and secrets, the sexual desires of priests are part of the hidden reality of the world.

“Never end a sentence with a preposition and never begin a sentence with an And.”

Sister Edgar’s writing advice is ironic in the sense that it is broken frequently throughout the novel. Her demands are relatively simple, yet the prose of Underworld frequently deviates from her rules. The frequency with which the novel breaks these rules illustrates the fragility of social institutions. Sister Edgar preaches her rules as though they were the Ten Commandments, imprinting them on Matt’s mind. However, these rules are easily broken and often with good reason. If the grammatical rules can be broken, the novel implies, then Sister Edgar’s other rules are equally breakable.

“She didn’t finish her kisses.”

During her brief affair with Nick, Klara does not finish her kisses. Not finishing is a theme throughout her life, which is spent indulging in the beginnings of things before leaving for something else. Throughout her numerous marriages, careers, and friendships, she struggles to finish the things she starts. Even the art project painting planes in the desert is only shown as a work in progress. Klara chose this particular project because of its scope, meaning that she doesn’t need to think about its ending.