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...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2016
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/1/11212-39667-1-PB.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848812479814041600 |
|---|---|
| author | Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali |
| author_facet | Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali |
| author_sort | Torkamaneh, Pouria |
| building | UKM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:02:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | oai:generic.eprints.org:10702 |
| institution | Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:02:57Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | oai:generic.eprints.org: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 |
| spellingShingle | Torkamaneh, Pouria Taghizadeh, Ali Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal |
| title | 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_short | 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 |
| url | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10702/1/11212-39667-1-PB.pdf |