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A Comparative Study Jean Baudrillard's Notion of The End of History and Meaning in Two Apocalyptic Novels John Wyndham's The Day of The Triffids and Saramago's Blindness
A Comparative Study Jean Baudrillard's Notion of The End of History and Meaning in Two Apocalyptic Novels John Wyndham's The Day of The Triffids and Saramago's Blindness
Apocalyptic Novels
Apocalyptic novels are concerned with the end of the world and civilization. The idea of ending goes back to thousands of years ago but it is still popular. Concerning the nature of the catastrophe the post apocalyptic novels are categorized under 14 titles. (There are about 14 ways by which the novels represent the demise of the world). I have chosen John Wyndhams The Day of the Triffids and Saramagos Blindness to compare since both are post-apocalyptic novels and considering the subject in both of them the people go blind due to a catastrophe. The catastrophe in Blindness is pandemic and also has unknown reason and the catastrophe in The Day of the Triffids is resulted from an astronomic impact. Writers like James Berger, Lois Zamora, Richard Dellamora, Valerie Zimbaro have books on the Apocalyptic Literature to which I will refer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction#Novels_6
http://triffids.wuthering-heights.co.uk
He has about 10 novels published during his life and many other novels and collections that were published after his death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thedayofthetiffids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/john_wyndham
The Day of the Triffids tells the story of an earth where some giant plants that eat meat and are called Triffids are raised to use as a fuel source be. They are kept in farms and are under the control. Then one day there is a strange shower of lights from the sky that causes all who see it blind. Only one person can see and that person is a Triffid expert who is attacked by a Triffid and sent to hospital for an eye operation so he doesnt see the strange lights from the sky. When nobody can see the Triffids escape from the farms and began to eat people. In the end some people try to form a colony and to try to survive humanity.
Jose Saramago (1922 2010) is a Nobellaureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Saramago's novels usually deal with fantastic scenarios.
http://myfoxla.com
He uses imaginative themes to talk about important matters related to the human condition in the contemporary life. He represents characters who try to connect with one another and want to bond a community and also talks about their needs for individuality. His works are considered under the category of magic realism as well. He has about 29 works and he wrote his last novel in 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jose_saramago
http://www.shvoong.com/books/novel-novella/1810158-essay-blindness/
Approach
The purpose of my Thesis is to use Jean Baudrillards notion of the end of history and meaning and compare The Day of the Triffids to Blindness. Jean Baudrillard (1929 2007) is a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His works are usually related to postmodernism and post-structuralism.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0642Og2kwiuSR4nmslUQoQ
According to Jame Jam Online, Dr. Moradkhani who had a lecture on The End of History has stated that the roots of the idea of the end of the world go back to Hegel in 19th century but nowadays especially before and after the beginning of the new millennium this notion has become controversial. Dr. Moradkhani quoting Baudrillard says that because of the recent huge progress in media and technology we have taken distance from history and everything has change into a hyper real and in other scene the history has come to an end. Baudrillard, very much like the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, believes that that history had ended or "vanished" but this end is because of the historical progress.
Baudrillard has many books and lectures on this idea: The Illusion of the End is a meditation on the theme of history and the human fate which is bound up with it. The Vital Illusion that argues real is not only dead, it has vanished completely. The Fatal Strategies discusses that the apocalypse has happened and so he talks about Fatal Strategies by which we may be able to protect what he calls our fatal selves.