Whereas much critical attention has focused upon how Don
DeLillo’s novels offer a sustained critique of the postmodern condition
within American culture, this essay uses DeLillo’s most recent novel,
Underworld, as a lens to explore how American postmodernity has
manifested as a limbo where certainty and value have drifted free from
the “real.” The essay traces how the fracturing of the real has historical
precedent in American Puritan ideology, and how the postmodern rendition
of Puritanism in twentieth century is characterized best as empty
materialism and displaced spiritual desire that departs from the Puritan
stance of material wealth as the sign of divine calling. Drawing upon
DeLillo’s critique, I argue that the “real” and the spiritual in American
culture have been erased by the pervasive force of despiritualized capitalism.
