In this graduation thesis I will aim my attention to the ways in which Europe is portrayed in the novel ''Artificial Tears'' by Milko Valent. Europe, as an idea and a phenomenon in the today's era of banality, will be analysed from the perspectives of various characters from the novel. The aim of this thesis is to show that economic growth does not imply democratic equality; moreover, equality before the law is the legacy and foundation of democracy which is, according to Martha Nussbaum, grounded in cultivating critical thinking and empathy provided by humanities. Using the poetics of psychotic realism, Milko Valent creates a medical record of Europe which is crumbling due to ''the metastases of neoliberal capitalism'' caused by various institutions that promote the myth of European democracy. While Greece used to be ''the cradle of Western civilization“, the European Union has nowadays become the synonym for democracy and high culture (Luketić) in which phenomena such as banality, racism, escape from multiculturalism, apathy, false media and others can be found. In ''Artificial Tears'' those phenomena are analysed on several narrative levels. Europeans have created the illusion of a political ideal, which is in Valent's text demystified because by describing what reality looks like it simultaneously produces that same reality.