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Title THE SPECTACLE OF CHAOS: A READING OF HYPERREALITY IN THE SELECTED POSTMODERN AMERICAN FICTION

Author(s) Laiba Hafeez Khan

Abstract This thesis investigates the representation of hyperreality and mediated spectacle in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and James Dashner’s The Eye of Minds, analyzing how these forces erode personal identity and generate social disorder within postmodern contexts. Using Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality and Guy Debord’s concept of the spectacle as its theoretical foundation, the study examines how characters are constructed, destabilized, and fragmented by environments dominated by simulation, consumerism, and technological mediation. Employing Catherine Belsey’s method of textual analysis, the research explores how both novels depict realities where the boundaries between the real and the simulated collapse, producing moral ambiguity, alienation, and psychological disintegration. In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman exemplifies hyperreality through his fixation on surfaces, commodified identity, and the aestheticization of violence, offering a disturbing critique of consumer culture and moral emptiness. Conversely, The Eye of Minds situates its narrative in a innovative digital landscape, yet it raises parallel concerns about the dominance of technology, the loss of authentic experience, and the fragility of human identity within simulated environments. By placing these two texts in dialogue, the thesis demonstrates that hyperreal and spectacular settings function not simply as narrative backdrops but as active forces shaping characters’ perceptions, decisions, and eventual collapse of selfhood. The study further addresses a gap in scholarship by invoking Baudrillard and Debord in tandem, offering a dual-theoretical framework rarely employed in literary analysis. In doing so, it highlights how postmodern fiction critically interrogates the cultural, psychological, and ethical consequences of life in hypermediated, consumption-driven societies. This comparative study underscores how postmodern fiction critically reflects the cultural, ethical, and existential consequences of living in hypermediated, consumption-driven societies. Ultimately, the research reveals that both Ellis and Dashner dramatize the dissolution of authenticity in a world where appearances, simulations, and spectacle increasingly replace lived reality.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2025-08-06

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