| Summary: | The interrelationship of natural and cultural history in Don DeLillo’s <i>Underworld</i> presents an ecology of <i>mimesis</i>. If, as Timothy Morton argues, ecological thought can be understood as a “mesh of interconnection,” DeLillo’s novel studies the interpretation of connection through secular and postsecular faiths. <i>Underworld</i> situates its action in the Cold War era. DeLillo’s formal techniques examine the tropes of paranoia, containment, excess, and waste peculiar to the history of the Cold War. Parataxis and free-indirect discourse emphasize the contexts of reference in the novel, illustrating how hermeneutics informs the significance of boundaries. DeLillo’s use of parataxis exemplifies the conditions that propose and limit metaphor’s reference to reality, a condition that offers the terms for meaningful action. I utilize Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics to demonstrate how <i>Underworld</i> situates the reference to reality in its temporal and narrative condition. The historical situation of the novel’s narrative structure allows DeLillo to interrogate the role of discourse in producing and interpreting connection. <i>Underworld </i>offers layers of significance; the reader’s engagement with the novel’s discourse<i> </i>reaffirms the conditions of a meaningful relationship with reality in the pertinence of a metaphor.
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