THE HYPERREALITIES IN CYBERPUNK NOVEL FREE TO FALL BY LAUREN MILLER

Abstract

Free To Fall is a novel written by Lauren Miller. This novel portrays the life in Massachusetts fifteen years into the future where technology surrounds people’s lives. This is shown by the emergence of Lux, as a decision-making application, which helps people get better live at first. However, it turns out to be the application that leads people into the simulated Massachusetts created by Gnosis. This thesis is conducted to analyze the hyperrealities in cyberpunk novel, Free To Fall. As the cyberpunk novel, Free To Fall takes some points of contact with science fiction and postmodern fiction. This novel deals with technology and the effect of technology which is hyperreality. Hyperreality is a phenomenon which causes a discontinuity between the real and the fake. There are two questions in this research; those are the construction of cyberpunk fiction in Free To Fall and what lies beyond hyperreality. This research uses qualitative research method. The data are collected using close reading and documentary technique.The data are about the information related to the hyperreality in Free To Fall, the information about Paradise Lost, and the condition of present America related to the technological development. The discussion is started with the analysis of the construction of cyberpunk fiction which leads to the discussion about hyperreality. In analyzing the hyperreality in Free To Fall, I use Baudrillard’s Hyperreality Theory which explains the changing orders of image. This starts with image as a representation to image as a simulacrum which causes the emergence of hyperreality. The discussion continues to analyze the intertextuality between Free To Fall and Paradise Lost by John Milton. Furthermore, this research also discusses the condition of America which is used to show the relation between the hyperreality in Free To Fall and in America. As the result, I find three hyperrealities in Free To Fall. The analysis of hyperreality shows that there is a simulation of simulations in Free To Fall. Moreover, the construction of hyperreality in Free To Fall is interrelated with the construction of hyperreality in America. Hyperreality in America shows that the Americans, through the development of technology, want to create their own paradise where they can get happiness.