A Study of the Concepts of Hyperreality and Simulation in PaulAuster’s City of Glass

The present study attempts to apply a postmodern reading on Paul Auster’s City of Glass by employing Baudrillard’s key concepts namely hyperreality and simulation. As a prolific postmodern novelist, Auster in City of Glass narrates the life of a detective story writer who loses his reality only to play the role of a private detective and in doing so he drowns in a hyperreal world made up of mere simulations. Accordingly, this postmodern fiction is widely regarded as a representative sample of the genre of postmodern detective fiction and also a good choice for analyzing through the aforementioned Baudrillardian notions. Hereby, the researcher aims to shed some light on the effects of living in hyperreal on the perception of reality. In this regard, she provides the reader with some traces of Baudrillardian concepts of hyperreality and simulation throughout the novel to point to the conclusion that the all-pervasive influence of simulations is to such an extent that makes it almost impossible for the characters to distinguish between real and imaginary and consequently leads them to a hyperreal world

Keywords:

Baudrillard , hyperreality , simulation , postmodernism , City of Glass