Hipermodernidade, simulações e não lugares na trilogia do Desastre Urbano de J. G. Ballard

Abstract

Our thesis examines the novels Crash (1973), Concrete Island (1974) and Skyscraper (1975) by James Graham Ballard. In these narratives, we draw on the relationship between the characters and narrators with the spaces and non-places created by hypermodernity, as well as analyzing the possible social and cultural changes, subjectivity and physical and psychological impacts originating from these spaces in the novels. These narratives record influences made possible by hypermodern technologies and spaces, regarding deviant and subversive human behavior, simulated vital expectations, confrontation with the Self and diluted identities. In general, therefore, the hypothesis we defend is that, from the reading of J. G. Ballard's urban disaster trilogy, we observe a direct and influential relationship between the spaces produced by Hypermodernity, non-places and the behavior of contemporary man. To this end, we used a bibliographical review that supports the analysis of the novels, in order to answer the initial questions of this work, with regard to the simulation and behavioral reactions promoted by the techno-telemedia apparatus, based on the interaction of man with hypermodern spaces and in accordance with the replacement of the body by the machine. The answers to these questions seek to elucidate and support the theories formulated by scholars such as Jean Baudrillard (1991), Zigmunt Bauman (2010), Gilles Lipovetsky (2004), Paula Sibilia (2003), among others. Thus, the thesis adopts as a procedure the analytical study of the cited novels, supported by bibliographical, qualitative research, with a view to highlighting how the characters and narrators interact from a literary, sociological, cultural and historical point of view. Concepts intrinsic to the sphere of cultural studies are applied in the analysis of the works, relating them to the theories inherent to each process that structures Ballardian narratives, associating these processes, ultimately, to the changes or undeclared changes in the models imposed by the order of global capitalism.