Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal

Auster’s The Locked Room (1986) presents a protagonist in a desperate quest for a lost character whose absence functions as the only significant storyline to which the narrative unfolds. Although, stylistically, the entire plot revolves around the disappeared Fanshawe, nowhere in the narrative can...

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Main Authors:	Torkamaneh, Pouria, Taghizadeh, Ali
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/1/11212-39667-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-10702
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-107022017-10-02T03:44:03Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali Auster’s The Locked Room (1986) presents a protagonist in a desperate quest for a lost character whose absence functions as the only significant storyline to which the narrative unfolds. Although, stylistically, the entire plot revolves around the disappeared Fanshawe, nowhere in the narrative can the reader identify with certainty any traces of his actual existence. Fanshawe never appears in the story, but all the characters and their lives centre firmly upon him, thereby creating the illusion that without his appearance their lives can never be fully restored nor can they make any real sense. Taking into account Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality, this research tries to demonstrate that what Auster’s characters go through is living obsessively with a nonpresent inaccessible Fanshawe whose abrupt disappearance leaves no clue of his existence, but just a lost memory which haunts the characters’ deepest senses of reality. This claim especially strengthens itself in the end, when the reader finds out that it all has been Fanshawe’s plot to keep his family and friend in dark in order to completely vanish from the realm of the real. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/1/11212-39667-1-PB.pdf Torkamaneh, Pouria and Taghizadeh, Ali (2016) Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 22 (2). pp. 199-207. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/807
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	Auster’s The Locked Room (1986) presents a protagonist in a desperate quest for a lost character whose absence functions as the only significant storyline to which the narrative unfolds. Although, stylistically, the entire plot revolves around the disappeared Fanshawe, nowhere in the narrative can the reader identify with certainty any traces of his actual existence. Fanshawe never appears in the story, but all the characters and their lives centre firmly upon him, thereby creating the illusion that without his appearance their lives can never be fully restored nor can they make any real sense. Taking into account Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality, this research tries to demonstrate that what Auster’s characters go through is living obsessively with a nonpresent inaccessible Fanshawe whose abrupt disappearance leaves no clue of his existence, but just a lost memory which haunts the characters’ deepest senses of reality. This claim especially strengthens itself in the end, when the reader finds out that it all has been Fanshawe’s plot to keep his family and friend in dark in order to completely vanish from the realm of the real.
format	Article
author	Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali
spellingShingle	Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal
author_facet	Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali
author_sort	Torkamaneh, Pouria
title	Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal
title_short	Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal
title_full	Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal
title_fullStr	Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal
title_full_unstemmed	Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal
title_sort	paul auster’s the locked room as a critique of the hyperreal
publisher	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate	2016
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/1/11212-39667-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:58:14Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:58:14Z
_version_	1777406673945624576

Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal

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