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| Abstract |
Every reader of Philip K. Dick is familiar with the notion of the simulacrum illustrated in such novels as The Simulacra (1964) or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?(1968), in which technologies (re...spectively media and biotechnologies) are used to construct fake human beings and/or generate fake realities. However, in the early short story “Small Town”(1954), the simulation and subsequent overthrow of reality by a miniature model is depicted without specific references to technology. Indeed, here the simulacrum appears to derive its potency first and foremost from the main character’s initial dissatisfaction with reality. Likewise, Shinji Kajio’s “Reiko’s Universe Box”(1981) describes the destruction of the diegetic reality by a simulated universe contained in a seemingly harmless box that one character receives as a present. As in “Small Town,” what is remarkable in Kajio’s story is not only the capacity of the simulation to enthrall the protagonist, but also the tendency it evinces to literally replace mundane reality. The purpose of this paper is to compare “Small Town” and “Reiko’s Universe Box” in order to point out common features in the way they describe the interactions between simulacra and the “real” world. More precisely, this paper analyzes the dynamic by which the expansion of the main characters’ subjectivity beyond its original frontiers eventually leads to an overthrow of the “objective” reality. Both stories seem to locate the origin of this process in the protagonists’ discontent with daily life and their inability to relate to others. As a result, these characters cease to communicate with their surrounding and instead devote all their attention to a simulation of the world into which they are gradually absorbed. Ultimately reversing this autistic flight from “Reality,” both stories conclude by picturing the sudden swallowing of the diegetic “objective” world by the simulacra.show more
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