| Popis: |
Tom McCarthy's Novel “Remainder”: Estranged from the Present, Trapped in the Past Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder depicts the physical and mental struggle of the nameless protagonist who is coping with trauma after an accident that estranged him from the world as he no longer feels real. The object of the present BA paper is the protagonist’s search for authenticity in a reconstructed reality where with the use of money he can re-enact scenes from his past by constructing buildings and hiring actors. It is suggested that the protagonist having been estranged from the world due to trauma has lost his sense of reality. The paper focuses on the uncanny elements the story carries, such as the familiar becoming unfamiliar and revealing that which ought to have been hidden, and how it relates to the creation of the simulacra of past events. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories of the uncanny, and the pleasure principle together with Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra create a concise framework for the analysis and leads towards an understanding of the protagonist’s inability to distinguish fallacy from truth. The paper aims at supporting two hypotheses: first, the protagonist having lost his memories sees himself as uncanny and as a result engaged in the creation of already experienced situations; second, having lost his grasp on reality he is the one who remains behind in the past, never able to feel authentic. The results of the study propose that the protagonist is doomed to fail in his quest for authenticity because his methods defeat the purpose and he is unable to overcome his trauma, consequently trapping himself in a loop where he is never able to achieve death. |
