The Collapse In Hyperreality

Don De Lillo is one of the most famous contemporary American writers.His novels have rich postmodern themes,which makes him widely regarded as a postmodern writer.His works have won many literary awards in the United States,and he has been a popular candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature in recent years.His representative works include White Noise,Underworld,Cosmopolis,etc.His works have grand themes,including consumerism,terrorism,electronic media,environmental protection and so on.The study of his works has always been one of the hotspots both at home and abroad.However,his latest work The Silence,which was published in October 2020,has still little research on it.This thesis combines the novel with Baudrillard’s hyperreality theory to study the spiritual crisis of individuals living in postmodern society shown in The Silence.Through close reading and cultural studies,this thesis analyzes the origin and impact of these spiritual crisis,showing the negative impact of modernity and electronic media on the characters in this novel.At the same time,this thesis pays attention to the development of De Lillo’s theme in recent years,and studying the relationship between De Lillo’s humanism and postmodern spirit in The Silence.This thesis is divided into five parts.The first chapter introduces De Lillo’s life and the research status of his works both at home and abroad,the framework of postmodern spiritual crisis and hyperreality theory and the structure and significance of this thesis.The second,third and fourth chapters analyze the spiritual crisis of the main characters in The Silence based on hyperreality theory,and analyze the postmodern spirit shown by De Lillo in this novel in the second half of the fourth chapter.The fifth chapter is the conclusion.It can be found that by presenting the spiritual crisis caused by the abuse of modern science and technology and electronic media,De Lillo criticizes the negative impact of modernity on people living in postmodern society.The blackout in The Silence is a wake-up call for people deeply affected in these spiritual crisis,in hope of redemption from this terrible situation.This shows that De Lillo is deeply concerned about the mental state of people living in postmodern society and expresses his criticism on the uncontrolled development of modernity.