Don DeLillo's cosmopolis: conceptualizing of Zygmunt Bauman's liquid modernity

Abstract

The more we move onward in America's history, the more the effect of technology and science can be felt quite tangible. To live in the present era makes this even more notable since the age is going through and begetting such pervasive phenomenon like consumerism .The fact is that this notion is strongly propagated in the postmodern era. Families in this era can be vividly identified as the mere slaves of technology and its omnivorous progeny, consumerism. Donald Richard DeLillo as a postmodern author paid a comprehensive attention to this issue of technology and consumerism in his novels. One of the theorists who has extensively written in the field of consumerism is the polish sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman (1929) who in his book Liquid Modernity asserts a new term for the present condition of the world as it is the antithesis of the preceded solid modernity. Surely, the postmodern world owes a great deal of its liquidity to the prevalence and perfection of consumerism. Cosmopolis depicts a society or even more limited, a family or a youngster that is not deliberately, entangled in the ruling of technology and consumerism. What is depicted in Comopolis is a combination of the role and dominance of technology and consumerism to form the sociology of a postmodern individual, family, and society.Also, the primary determinant that is technology, is explored in its relation to the other factors. Due to the candidness of most of his futuristic novels, Don DeLillo's views show little optimism for success within his fictional postmodern world. He has always been blunt at telling us where American postmodern society is going. This paper aims to expose the America's society in Cosmopolis which is the materialization of a well-developed consumer society, into the theories and concepts by Zygmunt Bauman.