An Exploration On Spiritual Crisis In England,England From The Perspective Of Simulation Theory

One of the most significantly acknowledged authors in modern British literature,Julian Barnes(1946-),frequently incorporates realistic thought into his works.Based on Baudrillard’s simulation theory,with England,England(1998)as the research subject,this thesis mainly analyzes the representation and reasons of spiritual crisis under a simulation society of contemporary England to rethink the universal,modern industrial and social disease.It is found out that the reason of the British spiritual crisis lies in the morbid or abnormal state of the English society,bringing symbolized culture of consumption,newly invented traditions and hyper-real living world to make English people unconsciously suffer from both individual or collective spiritual crisis.This thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces Julian Barnes and his works and reviews the current domestic and international research situation.Then it explains the feasibility to analyze spiritual crisis from the perspective of simulation theory and put forward the theoretical framework and the central thesis of this paper.The second chapter focuses on the specific manifestations of the spiritual crisis in the novel.In modern British society,people often become fanatical about replicas,and after losing the correct understanding of the objective world,they lose their cultural and individual identity,destroying the national culture itself,and aggravating the individual’s spiritual crisis,and eventually they are alienated from the reality.The third chapter analyzes that the cause of the spiritual crisis lies in the symbolization and formalization of culture in the consumer society and the continuous invention of tradition,which eventually alienates people from culture and even from themselves.The fourth chapter makes the way out of the crisis.The individuals in the book constantly make unconscious attempts to confront reality and get away from the hyper-reality.Although these attempts do not completely overcome the crisis,they are the first step for the British to face the reality.The final chapter is the conclusion.The paper not only bears the relevance of considering the author’s warning to nowadays British reality,but also fills a need in the study of Barnes’ England,England.