Blurring Boundaries: Real and Hyperreal Elements in Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World

N Atheesh; M Mahesh

doi:10.34293/sijash.v11iS4-Mar.7603

N Atheesh Ph. D. Research Scholar, S.T. Hindu College, Nagercoil (Affiliated to Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Abisekapatti, Tirunelveli)
M Mahesh Associate Professor, Department of English, S.T. Hindu College, Nagercoil (Affiliated to Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Abisekapatti, Tirunelveli)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34293/sijash.v11iS4-Mar.7603

Keywords: Daniel Kehlmann, Hyperreal, Representation, Alexander Von Humboldt, Carl Friedrich Gauss

Abstract

The academic paper centers on evaluating the real and hyperreal elements in the German novel Measuring the World(2005) written by Daniel Kehlmann. The novel is set in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, during the Enlightenment era, and bears a resemblance of the prominent figures of real time, namely the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and the geographer Alexander von Humboldtof the same centuries. The historical description of these prominent figures undergoes alteration, and the writer adds several dramatic events to it. This research paper attempts to analyse the theory of hyperreality by the French theorist Jean Baudrillard. The paper also highlights the concept of Simulation that Kehlmann employs in altering the reality with representations. In further, the paper aims to provide an understanding of the examination of narration, character development, and exaggerated events exploring the multiple-layered narrative.