Cosmopolis: a World of Subjective Reality

Cosmopolis, written in the spirit of post modernity, rejects the idea of an ordered universe with one objective reality. This novel asserts that reality is instead subjective, and as human beings while we all experience the same one world ,but we each perceive this experience differently, and therefore we all live in different worlds. In this paper using quotes from Cosmopolis, I will explain how Don DeLillo uses dialogue and the actions of characters to construct his argument for subjective reality, and how his theory of subjective reality relates to the real world. Before I begin quoting Cosmopolis, I will briefly explain the modern definition of subjective reality. The idea of subjective reality asserts that reality and of the “truths” in the universe changes between individuals. Meaning, although there may be objective truths in the universe, each person perceives these truths and experiences them differently, and because of everyone’s own unique perspective of the world, each lives in their own world existing in an altered state of objective reality.
Cosmopolis is littered with dialogue where the characters are talking about subjective reality. You could almost randomly flip to any page in the novel and find that someone is talking about subjective reality. It was obvious to me that Don DeLillo purposefully wrote this dialogue adding an argument for the existence of subjective reality. Although one could argue I read the novel looking for people talking about subjective reality and that in reality it is all in my head, for the purposes of this paper I am going to assume Don DeLillo purposely wrote Cosmopolis as an argument for subjective reality.
One of the first lines of dialogue which I encountered that got me to thinking about subjective reality is near the very beginning of the novel when Eric is in the limo talking with Shiner. Shiner asks Eric why they were in the car instead of the office to which Eric replies, “how do you know we’re in the car