The novel illustrates this through Jack's crippling fear, and its highly fragmented organization of events and chapters. This fragmentation stagnates the plot compared to the typical novel, and for Jack's purposes, keeps death at arm's length. Academia The novel is an example of academic satire, where the shortcomings of academia are ridiculed through irony or sarcasm. Critic Karen Weekes notes that the professors at University-on-the-Hill "fail to inspire respect" from their students and that "the university itself is 'trivialized by the nostalgic study of popular and youth culture by offering classes on Adolf Hitler, Elvis Presley, and cinematic car crashes. Critic Ian Finseth adds how "the academic profession ...[has a] tendency to divide up the world and all human experience." DeLillo uses Hitler Studies as a way for the characters to deal with complex information, enabling them to cope with the intricacies of their society. Critic Stephen Schryer goes on to note the satirical way that characters in White Noise "lay claim to specialized knowledge that can be transmitted to others, regardless of their educational accomplishments or actual income." According to Schryer, the characters' vocations suggest "pseudo-professionalism," as if each can claim a professional expertise or outstanding intellect that "[renders] this class dependent on hyper-specialized forms of expertise." Critic David Alworth suggests that characters deal with unknowns like death via the "pseudo-professional"; they respond by pretending that they are educated to understand it. Consumer culture Ecocritic Cynthia Deitering has described the novel as central to the rise of "toxic consciousness" in American fiction in the 1980s, arguing that the novel "offers insight into a culture's shifting relation to nature and to the environment at a time when the imminence of ecological collapse was, and is, part of the public mind and of individual imagination." Alexander Davis has similarly made the argument that White Noise reflects humanity's changed relationship to nature as a result of rampant consumerism. DeLillo critiques modern consumption by connecting identity to shopping in White Noise. In a 1993 interview, DeLillo states that there is a "consume or die" mentality in America, which is reflected in the novel. Characters in the novel try to avoid death through shopping. For example, Jack goes on a shopping spree where he is described as feeling more powerful with each purchase: "I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums."