Post-modernism
Post-modernism is the term used to suggest a
reaction or response to modernism in the late twentieth century. So
postmodernism can only be understood in
relation to Modernism. At its core, Postmodernism rejects that which Modernism
champions. While postmodernism seems very much like modernism in many ways, it
differs from modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernism,
for example, tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and
history, but presents that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be
lamented and mourned as a loss. Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the
idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates
that. In literature, it used to describe certain characteristics of post–World
War II literature, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable
narrators, etc. and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in
Modernist literature.
Characteristics of Post-modernism:
Because of some similar characteristics of modernism
and postmodernism, critics some time become confuse to differentiate one from
the other. It would be more helpful if we discuss the characteristics of
post-modernism in compare and contrast to modernism.
Like modernism, postmodernism also believes the view
that there is no absolute truth and truth is relative. Postmodernism asserts
that truth is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but is rather
constructed as the mind tries to understand its own personal reality. So, facts
and falsehood are interchangeable. For example, in classical work such as King
Oedipus there is only one truth that is “obey your fate”. In contrast to
classical work in postmodern work such as in Waiting for Godot, there is no
such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative here.
Whereas Modernism places faith in the ideas, values,
beliefs, culture, and norms of the West, Postmodernism rejects Western values
and beliefs as only a small part of the human experience and often rejects such
ideas, beliefs, culture, and norms.
Whereas Modernism attempts to reveal profound truths
of experience and life, Postmodernism is suspicious of being
"profound" because such ideas are based on one particular Western
value systems.
Whereas Modernism attempts to find depth and
interior meaning beneath the surface of objects and events, Postmodernism
prefers to dwell on the exterior image and avoids drawing conclusions or
suggesting underlying meanings associated with the interior of objects and
events.
Whereas Modernism focused on central themes and a
united vision in a particular piece of literature, Postmodernism sees human
experience as unstable, internally contradictory, ambiguous, inconclusive,
indeterminate, unfinished, fragmented, discontinuous, "jagged," with
no one specific reality possible. Therefore, it focuses on a vision of a
contradictory, fragmented, ambiguous, indeterminate, unfinished,
"jagged" world.
Whereas Modern authors guide and control the
reader’s response to their work, the Postmodern writer creates an
"open" work in which the reader must supply his own connections, work
out alternative meanings, and provide his own (unguided) interpretation.
Characteristics of Postmodern Writing:
As in postmodernism, all ideas are new, so sometimes
it becomes difficult and confusing to properly understand these terms.
Irony, playfulness, black humor:
Postmodern authors were certainly not the first to
use irony and humor in their writing, but for many postmodern authors, these
became the hallmarks of their style. Postmodern authors are very frustrated for
World War II, the Cold War, conspiracy theories. They try to amalgate it from
indirect way so, irony, playfulness, black humor comes. In fact, several
novelists later to be labeled postmodern were first collectively labeled black
humorists. : John Barth, Joseph Heller, William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Bruce
Jay Friedman, etc. It's common for postmodernists to treat serious subjects in
a playful and humorous way.
Some examples of texts that bear the above
features--Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure
of the Text. The central concept of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is the irony of
the now-idiomatic "catch-22", and the narrative is structured around
a long series of similar ironies. Thomas Pynchon in particular provides prime
examples of playfulness, often including silly wordplay, within a serious
context. The Crying of Lot 49, for example, contains characters named Mike
Fallopian and Stanley Koteks and a radio station called KCUF, while the novel
as a whole has a serious subject and a complex structure.
Pastiche:
Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche
means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. In
Postmodernist literature, many postmodern authors combined, or “pasted”
elements of previous genres and styles of literature to create a new narrative
voice, or to comment on the writing of their contemporaries. For example,
William S. Burroughs uses science fiction, detective fiction, westerns;
Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales; Thomas Pynchon, uses
elements from detective fiction, science fiction, and war fiction. In Robert
Coover's 1977 novel The Public Burning, Coover mixes historically inaccurate
accounts of Richard Nixon interacting with historical figures and fictional
characters such as Uncle Sam and Betty Crocker. Pastiche can also refer to
compositional technique, for example the cut-up technique employed by
Burroughs. Another example is B. S. Johnson's 1969 novel The Unfortunates; it
was released in a box with no binding so that readers could assemble it however
they chose.
Intertextuality:
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by
other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior
text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term
“intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since
it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William
Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from
those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a
stylish way of talking about allusion and influence.”[1]An important element of
postmodernism is its acknowledgment of previous literary works. The
intertextuality of certain works of postmodern fiction means the relationship
between one text (a novel for example) and another or one text within the
interwoven fabric of literary history. Critics point to this as an indication
of postmodernism’s lack of originality and reliance on clichés. Intertextuality
in postmodern literature can be a reference or parallel to another literary
work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of a style. In
postmodern literature this commonly manifests as references to fairy tales – as
in works by Margaret Atwood, Donald Barthelme, and many other – or in
references to popular genres such as science-fiction and detective fiction. An
early 20th century example of intertextuality which influenced later
postmodernists is "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis
Borges, a story with significant references to Don Quixote which is also a good
example of intertextuality with its references to Medieval romances. Don
Quixote is a common reference with postmodernists, for example Kathy Acker's
novel Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream. Another example of intertextuality in
postmodernism is John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor which deals with Ebenezer
Cooke’s poem of the same name.[citation needed] Often intertextuality is more
complicated than a single reference to another text. Robert Coover’s Pinocchio
in Venice, for example, links Pinocchio to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Also,
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose takes on the form of a detective novel and
makes references to authors such as Aristotle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Borges.
Metafiction:
Many postmodern authors feature metafiction in their
writing, which, essentially, is writing about writing, an attempt to make the
reader aware of its ficitionality, and, sometimes, the presence of the author.
Authors sometimes use this technique to allow for flagrant shifts in narrative,
impossible jumps in time, or to maintain emotional distance as a narrator.
Though metafiction is primarily associated with Modernist literature and
Postmodernist literature, but is found at least as early as Homer's Odyssey and
Chaucer's 14th century Canterbury Tales. Some examples of metafiction literary
texts: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien, Stephen King's Misery and Secret
Window, Secret Garden, Ian McEwan's Atonement, The Counterfeiters by André
Gide, John Irving's The World According to Garp, Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea by
Michael Morpurgo, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce,
Oracle Night by Paul Auster, More Bears! by Kenn Nesbitt, and Cy Coleman's 1989
Tony Award best musical, City of Angels.
Historiographic metafiction:
This term was created by Linda Hutcheon to refer to
novels that fictionalize actual historical events and characters. Notable
examples include Thomas Pynchon’s Mason
and Dixon, for example, features a scene in which George Washington smokes Pot.
Linda Hutcheon coined the term "historiographic metafiction" to refer
to works that fictionalize actual historical events or figures; notable
examples include The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez (about
Simón Bolívar), Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (about Gustave Flaubert),
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (which features such historical figures as Harry
Houdini, Henry Ford, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Booker T. Washington,
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung), and Rabih Alameddine's Koolaids: The Art of War
which makes references to the Lebanese Civil War and various real life
political figures. Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon also employs this concept;
for example, a scene featuring George Washington smoking marijuana is included.
John Fowles deals similarly with the Victorian Period in The French
Lieutenant's Woman. In regard to critical theory, this technique can be related
to "The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes.
Temporal distortion:
This is a common technique in modernist fiction:
fragmentation and non-linear narratives are central features in both modern and
postmodern literature. Temporal distortion in postmodern fiction is used in a
variety of ways, often for the sake of irony. In this literary the author may
jump forwards or backwards in time, or there may be cultural and historical
references that do not fit. For example, In Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed
deals playfully with anachronisms, Abraham Lincoln using a telephone for
example. Time may also overlap, repeat, or bifurcate into multiple
possibilities. For example, in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" from
Pricksongs & Descants, the author presents multiple possible events
occurring simultaneously—in one section the babysitter is murdered while in another
section nothing happens and so on—yet no version of the story is favored as the
correct version.
Technoculture and hyperreality:
In his essay of the same name, Frederic Jameson
called postmodernism the “cultural logic of late capitalism.” According to his
logic, society has moved beyond capitalism into the information age, in which
we are constantly bombarded with advertisements, videos, and product placement.
Many postmodern authors reflect this in their work by inventing products that
mirror actual advertisements, or by placing their characters in situations in
which they cannot escape technology. For example, Don DeLillo's White Noise
presents characters who are bombarded with a "white noise" of
television, product brand names, and clichés. The cyberpunk fiction of William
Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and many others use science fiction techniques to
address this postmodern, hyperreal information bombardment. Steampunk, a
subgenre of science fiction popularized in novels and comics by such writers as
Alan Moore and James Blaylock, demonstrates postmodern pastiche, temporal
distortion, and a focus on technoculture with its mix of futuristic technology
and Victorian culture.
Paranoia:
Paranoia is the belief that there's an ordering
system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring postmodern theme. For
the postmodernist, no ordering system exists, so a search for order is
fruitless and absurd. Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, long-considered a
prototype of postmodern literature, presents a situation which may be
"coincidence or conspiracy -- or a cruel joke". This often coincides
with the theme of technoculture and hyperreality. For example, in Breakfast of
Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, the character Dwayne Hoover becomes violent when
he's convinced that everyone else in the world is a robot and he is the only
human.
Magical realism:
Arguably the most important postmodern technique,
magical realism is the introduction of fantastic or impossible elements into a
narrative that it seems real or normal. Magical realist novels may include
dreams taking place during normal life, the return of previously deceased
characters, extremely complicated plots, wild shifts in time, and myths and fairy
tales becoming part of the narrative. Many critics argue that magical realism
has its roots in the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, two
South American writers, and some have classified it as a Latin American style.
Jorge Luis Borges’s Historia universal de la infamia, regarded by many as the
first work of magic realism. Apart from this, Colombian novelist Gabriel García
Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth Graver's
"The Mourning Door" are some examples of magic realism.
