Waiting in Don DeLillo's Love-Lies-Bleeding

In light of Schweizer's conceptualisation of waiting, this essay reads waiting as a valuable experience teeming with possibilities in Don DeLillo's play Love-Lies-Bleeding, and examines how it blends congruently with his embracement of attention as a resistance against the contemporary rush culture. Besides delving into Alex's enchantment with self-willed waiting and his waiter's things, DeLillo stages the clash between waiting and rushing in relation to the interpersonal relationships among the cast, especially the strained father-son relationship. Rather than brushing over the agony resultant from futile waiting of reluctant waiters, DeLillo zooms in on the affectionate moments, notably Sean's monologue about the fish and the healthy cast's first conversation on desert plant names, to explore how possibilities can emerge when time is endured and attention is paid. Dramatising waiting as a fundamental aspect of existence, DeLillo lauds the efforts to impart meaning to one's willing or unwilling lingering in time.