Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Jack Gladney

Like him or not, Jack's our main man. This Professor of Hitler Studies at a quaint rural university might seem pretty vanilla at first. But just wait and see what happens when he realizes he's going to die. He finds out his wife Babette cheated on him, and decides to kill the man she slept with. Oh yeah, and he's also desperate to get a hold of these pills that'll make him stop being so afraid of dying.

All in all, Jack's a considerate guy who loves his wife and his family, and he's not a half-bad dad. The action of the book always revolves around him, and the book tries pretty hard to keep us invested in what happens to our friendly neighborhood protagonist. And, like any good protagonist, Jack makes a journey and evolves throughout White Noise: he spends most of the book paralyzed by fear but ultimately finds a sort of (fragile, maybe transient, maybe totally fabricated) peace. Oh well—points for effort there, Jack.