Postmodernism
General Introductions
The world at its present state of development has recorded many
new ideas that far outweigh human memory. European and other
nations of the early world civilizations like Greece, Rome and Egypt
have at one time or the other articulated different philosophical ideas
popularly classified as the isms. In literature, writers have reacted to
these ideas through their creative outputs. Writers that have made
names are those who really had something new to offer to the world.
Starting from the colonial era, Africans inherited the burden of
literacy and so became a part of the world wide annex of European
ideas. Africa is battling with the new ideas of scientific and
technological development imported from Europe alongside their
philosophies when the world surprisingly took a new shape
patterned after the order of globalization.
With the era of globalization, African thinkers virtually collapsed
their former ideas of Europe and launched into the new world system
which is very alien. The internet, digitization and cyber café were
made new systems of communication and Africans have to relearn
their new literacy. All these developments are setting their pace of
development backwards, but are really the new definition of the
twenty first century man and his ideas summed up in the doctrine of
postmodernism. The question that pre-occupies the mind of scholars
is what this movement is. Does it really have anything to offer to man
or is it the sign of the end?
Postmodernism as a term has many definitions that make it difficult
for a scholar to place it to one indissoluble idea. The complex nature
of the term postmodernism has made it almost impossible to define,
or if ever defined, yields the opposite of what it seems to say. The
term has spread to wide areas of life and covers the fields of
philosophy, science, history, sociology, arts, literature, architecture,
criticism, ethnography and religion. While one factor remains
common (on postmodernism) to all these disciplines, the term could
connote different things in different fields of learning.
Historically the term was applied to describe the twentieth century,
or some part of the century and its arts that distinguished the period
marking the end of history. While some historians peg the date of
postmodernism to 1878, others propose the year 1991. As a popular
movement, postmodernism is traced to art and literature, where it
was important in the 1960's and 1970's. Tracing the impact of
postmodernism to art and literature, the term is noted to have
appropriated and also parodied all other movements that existed
before it.
In the philosophical field, postmodernism serves as a tool of
examining science and culture. It refutes and negates the concept of
an ultimate, objective truth in the area of philosophy.
The nature of philosophy behind the term has made it receive some
level of antagonism, if not rejection in some fields of learning like
history, science and sociology as it clashes with the traditional
concepts.
Some Definitions of Postmodernism
To properly understand the term postmodernism, there is the need to
cross examine, analyze and synthesize what others have said or are
saying about the concept and term. For a Senior Lecturer in the
University College Worcester, in the name of Alan How PhD,
postmodernism stands for
a broad term, which refers to twentieth century
cultural changes in art, architecture, literature,
music and film. Like post structuralism it attends
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to the lack of fixity in the meaning of things,
dwelling painfully, sometimes ironically on life
in a consumer society, but generally celebrating
the advent of this new kind of life. (144)
Arguing that postmodernism has its concentration on music,
shopping and film when it comes to the field of sociology, How
further spells out the emphasis of the concept on "the increasingly
fluid nature of gender definitions, or on the way social identity now
depends on the consumption of commodities and what they signify,
rather than social class or other traditional factors.” (144) On
postmodernism's relationship with linguistics, How opines that
more abstractly, and drawing on the poststructuralist
idea that reality is a linguistic construct, it undermines
the validity of modernist notions of ‘truth’, 'reason’
and 'progress’ arguing that they are western inventions
and thus the product of a particular view of what counts
as a reasonable, truthful or progressive, not the
supra-historical, universal ideas the West claims. (144)
One obvious fact elicited from the points above is the actual meaning
of postmodernism is daily passing through questioning and new
definitions. One constant notion that comes out of this critical idea is
that postmodernism has to do with a radical rethinking of different
fields that go with it. With this rethinking goes the constant reexamination of the lingering assumptions on how "meanings" are
produced. There is therefore the continuous experiment that goes
with postmodernism, extending to the techniques like fragmentation,
intertextuality, and appropriation to fundamental change the way in
which language represents the "meanings" of texts. On this
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assumption, Klages tries to compare postmodernism with
modernism and came up with the idea that postmodernism is closely
related to modernism in that while modernism has an inclination to
give a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history (as in the
'The Wasteland' or in Virginia Woolf's To the lighthouse),
postmodernism fails to lament this notion of fragmentation,
provisionality, or incoherence, but celebrates these ideas instead. To
the postmodernist, "the world is meaningless. Let's not pretend that
art can make meaning then, let's just play with nonsense". (Amazon.
Com)
For Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the term postmodern literature is
made use of while describing, "certain tendencies in post World War
II literature. It is both a continuation of the experimentation
championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for
example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and
a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modem
Literature.” (04) Hard as the term postmodernism is to define,
Wikipedia attributes the unifying features of this term to often
coincide with Jean - Francois Lyotard's concept of the “meta
narrative" and "little narrative", Jacque Derrida's concept of "play"
and Jean Baudrillard's "simulacra". The Wikipedia further gives the
meaning of postmodernism as
a term originally in architecture, literally 'after
the modern denoting a style that is more
ornamental than modernism, and which
borrows from previous architectural styles,
often in a playful or ironic fashion ... largely
influenced by the Western European
disillusionment induced by World War II,
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postmodernism tends to refer to a
cultural, intellectual, or artistic state
lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing
principle and embodying extreme complexity,
contradiction, ambiguity, diversity and inter
connectedness or inter referentiality.
In their concern for the anthropological definition of postmodernism,
Shannon Weiss and Karla Wesley of the Department of
Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of
Alabama opine that “postmodernity” concentrates on the tensions of
difference and similarity erupting from processes of globalization:
the (sic) accelerating circulation of people, the increasing dense and
frequent cross cultural interactions, and the unavoidable intersections
of local and global knowledge.
The cultural undertone in the above definition draws one’s attention
to the view of a religious minister, Reverend Geoffrey N. Oji who
states that "postmodernism is a development of thoughts in Europe
which arose out of challenges arising in culture, political, intellectual,
social and economic ways of life of the people". (10)
The definitions of postmodernism are endless, as they embrace
different fields of human endeavour. While questioning the
objectives of postmodernism it is observed that the postmodernists
are against the following ideas: (i) the central themes of the
Enlightenment, (ii) the claims of truth, objectivity, rationality,
universality, and criteria that purport to be more than local, (iii) they
are equally against the idea that natural science is an apt model for
knowledge in general, (iv) they doubt that philosophy as it has been
practiced in the Descartes, Hume, Kant tradition can serve as a judge
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of the truth and the good and they want to leave behind (or destroy)
the metaphysical pretensions of philosophy to grasp some absolute
reality beyond appearance: (Melchert: 702).
Summarily, the literal meaning of the term postmodernism is "after
modernism". In the words of Carpenter:
Postmodernism (in many ways) constitutes an
attack on modernist claims about the existence
of truth and value - claims that stem from
the European Enlightenment of the 18th century.
In disputing past assumptions postmodernists
generally display a preoccupation with the
inadequacy of language as a mode of communication
(Encarta CD: Articles 38).
Comparative Analysis of Postmodernism and Modernism
Postmodernism will give a clearer picture of itself when it is closely
analyzed with modernism from which it likely came into existence or
developed. Modernism developed out of the aesthetic movement that
was widely tagged "modernism." The movement embraced visual
arts, music, literature, and drama which failed to accept the
conventional Victorian standards of how art should be compared,
consumed and interpreted. The years around 1910 to 1930 were
considered as the period of "high modernism," and new definitions
were proffered on what poetry and fiction could be and do. Some of
the personalities considered to be the authorities and founders of the
twentieth century modernism in literature are Woolf, Joyce, Eliot,
Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka and Rilke.
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Mary Klages listed the main characteristics of modernism from
literary perspective to include:
1.
An emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and
in visual arts as well); an emphasis on how seeing (or reading
or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is
perceived. An example of this would be stream-of
consciousness writing.
2.
A movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by
omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of
view, and clear - cut moral positions. Faulkner's multiplynarrated stories are example of this aspect of modernism.
3.
A blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems
more documentary (as in T. S. Eliot or E. E. Cummings) and
prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce).
4.
An emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives,
and random-seeming collages of different materials.
5.
A tendency toward reflexivity, or self- consciousness, about
the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls
attention to its own status as a production, as something
constructed and consumed in particular ways.
6.
A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favour of
minimalist designs (as in the poetry of William Carlos
Williams) and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic
theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation.
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7.
A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or
popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art
and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.
Unlike modernism, postmodernism has the following characteristics,
which are closely related to modernism:
(l)
Non acceptance of the distinction that existed between ‘high’
and 'low' art natures.
(2) Postmodernism negates the categorization placed on arts by
genre distinctions, but places more emphasis on pastiche,
parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness.
(3) Postmodernism upholds reflexivity and self-consciousness,
fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in fiction and short
stories), ambiguity, simultaneity.
(4)
The main concentration of Postmodernism is on the
destructured, decentered and dehumanized subject.
(5) One major factor that distinguishes postmodernism from
modernism is that it celebrates the idea of fragmentation,
provisionality, or incoherence which modernism laments.
Unlike such modernist works like Virginia Woolf's To the
lighthouse or T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" where a fragmented
view of human subjectivity and history were lamented,
postmodernism has a non-lackadaisical attitude to the
meaninglessness of life, but just take meaninglessness with joy
and non-challantness, (i.e. if the world is without meaning,
there is no need to pretend that art can make meaning, but men
should just play with the nonsense).
(6)
Both modernism and postmodernism are however viewed as
cultural formations that go along with particular stages of
capitalism. The phases of capitalism that dictates this particular
cultural practices include what kind of art and literature is
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(7)
(8)
produced, all the spheres of influence of art and literature and
monopoly capitalism, including the multinational or consumer
capitalism (with emphasis on marketing, selling, and
consuming commodities, not on producing them).
In postmodern society, it is believed that there are no originals,
but only copies ... or what Jean Baudrillard calls "simulacra". If
one talks of a painting or sculpture, the original work exists
with highest values attached to it, but there could be other
copies produced out of the original.
Postmodernism is concerned with questions of the organization
of knowledge. Although knowledge was good for its own sake,
in the postmodern society, knowledge is functional as one
learns from things not to know them, but to use the knowledge.
Not only is knowledge characterized by its utility in
postmodern societies, but knowledge is distributable, storable,
and differently arranged in postmodern societies than in
modern ones. The advent of computer technologies
significantly contributed to this pastiche.
One of the consequences of postmodernism seems to be the rise of
religious fundamentalism, as a form of resistance to the questioning
of the "grand narratives" of religious truth. ('grand narratives' is a
theory propounded by Lyotard and may be interpreted as a kind of
metatheory, or meta-ideology, i.e. an ideology that explains an
ideology as with Marxism), a story that is told to explain the belief
systems that exist). The issue of religious fundamentalism is likely
obvious in Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East; which ban
postmodern book like Salmon Rushdie's, The Satanic Verses - due to
the fact that the book deconstruct grand narratives.
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Postmodernism likely makes a way for the combining of different
choices to hooking to the global culture of consumption, in which
goods and ideas are projected by forces that are far beyond any
individual's control. In the words of Klages, "the motto for
postmodern politics might well be "think globally, act locally" ... and
don't worry about any grand scheme or master plan." (Amazon.
Com)
Postmodernism and Literature
Postmodern Literature is a term that describes certain tendencies in
Post-World War II literature. It is a continuation of the
experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period
(relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox,
questionable narrators, etc) and a reaction against Enlightenment
ideas implicit in Modernist Literature. Postmodern literature, like
modernism as a whole, is difficult to define and little agreement
exists on the characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern
literature. The common denominators that go with postmodern
literature are however traceable to Jean Francois Lyotard's concept of
the "meta-narrative" and "little narrative", Jacques Derrida's concept
of "play", and Jean Bauldrillard's "simulacra". For example, instead of
the modernist "quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern
author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the
postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest.
As the postmodern authors fail to accept generally accepted views, or
conventions, their writers often celebrate chance over craft and make
use of metafiction to undermine the author's "univocal" control (the
control of one voice). The distinction between high and low culture is
also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of
multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not
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previously deemed fit for literature. The names of postmodern
authors often varies, most of them belong to the generation born in
the interwar period. Names like John Barth (b. 1930), Kurt Vonnegut
(1922-2007), E.L. Doctorow (b.1931), Robert Coover (1932), William
Burroughs (1914-1977), Thomas' Pynchon (b.1937), and Don Delillo
(b.1936) among others.
Pre-cursors of Postmodernism in Literature
Postmodernists often point to early novels and story collections as
inspiration for their experiments with narrative and structure: Don
Quixote, 1001 Arabian Nights, The Decameron, and Candide, among
many others. In the English Language, Lawrence Sterne's 1759 novel
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, with its heavy
emphasis on parody and narrative experimentation, is often cited as
an early echo of postmodernism. Other significant examples of 18th
century parody included the works of Jonathan Swift and Henry
Fielding's Shamela. Others include Lord Bryon's Satire, Don Juan
which is considered as one of the 19th century examples of attacks on
Enlightenment. Equally included in this group are Thomas Carlyle's
Sator Resartus, Alfred Jarry's ribald Ubu parodies and his invention of
'pataphysics', Lewis Carrol's playful experiments with signification;
the work of Oscar Wilde, Aurthur Rimbaud and Isidore Durcasse,
among others. Late 19th and early 20th century playwrights whose
thought and work influenced the aesthetics of postmodernism
include Swedish dramatist August Strinberg, the Italian author Luigi
Pirandello and the German playwright and theorist Bertolt Brecht.
Dadaism is equally believed to have influenced the postmodern
literature as it celebrated chance, parody, playfulness, and equally
attacked the central role of the artist. Dadaism equally contributed to
the development of collage, specifically collages use elements from
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advertisement or illustrations from popular novels. Andre Breton,
who founded surrealism, suggested that automatism and the
description of dreams should play a greater role in the creation of
literature. Surrealist Rene Magritte's experiments with signification
are used as examples by Jacques Derrida and Michael Foucault.
Foucault also makes use of illustrations from Jorge Luis Borges, who
is an important direct influence on many postmodernist fiction
writers. He is occasionally listed as a postmodernist though he
started writing in the 1920s. The influence of his experiments with
meta fiction and magical realism was not fully realized until the
postmodern period.
Postmodernist and Modernist Literature
The essential thing about the postmodernist and modernist literature
is that both of them represent a break from the 19th century realism.
In the realistic tradition of the novel, stories were told from an
objective or third person omniscient point of view. Another factor is
that both postmodern and modern literature search into the problem
of subjectivism in character development, thereby turning from
external reality to examine into the inner states of consciousness. In
many cases, both anchor on modernist tradition of the stream of
consciousness styles developed by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce,
or the explorative poems style developed by T. S. Elliot in The Waste
Land. Added to this is the issue of exploration of fragmentariness in
narrative and character - construction by both postmodern and
modem literature. The Waste Land is an example used in
differentiating both the modem and postmodern literature. Apart
from its fragmentary nature, the poem employs the use of pastiche
peculiar to most postmodern literature, as the speaker in The Waste
Land states that, "these fragments I have shored against my ruins”.
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While the modernist literature looks at fragmentation and extreme
subjectivity as an external crisis, or Freudian internal conflict,
needing psychotherapy, postmodernists however often hold the view
that this conflict is insurmountable. To them (i.e. postmodernists), the
artist is important, and the possible solution to the artist's "ruin” is to
play within the chaos. Although there is playfulness in many
modernist works, like in Joyce's Finnegans Wake or Virginia Woolf's
Orlando, that identifies them with the postmodernist tradition, the act
of playfulness is the central theme and the actual achievement of
order and meaning is hardly taken into consideration.
Origin of Postmodernism
There is no definite date that can be traced to be the rise and fall of
postmodernism's fame. Like all other stylistic eras, postmodernism
has many possible reference points, like being assumed to start in
1941 when the Irish novelist: James Joyce and his British counterpart,
Virginia Woolf died.
Other sources trace postmodernism to the aspect of an indication of
reaction against modernism in the beginning of the Second World
War (with its disrespect for human rights, just confirmed in the
Geneva Convention, through the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, the fire-bombing
of Tokyo, and Japanese American Interment). Postmodernism could
also imply a reaction to significant post-war events: the beginning of
the Cold War, the civil rights movement in the United States, post
colonialism (postcolonial literature), and the rise of the personal
computer (cyberpunk fiction and hypertext fiction).
There are also further arguments that the publications of significant
literary texts marked the beginning of postmodern literature. The
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first performance of Waiting for Godot in 1953 is marked by some
people as the starting point of postmodernism as well as the first
publication of Howl in 1956 or of Naked Lunch in 1959. For others,
postmodernism started with the moments in critical theory like that
of Jacques Derrida's "Structure; Sign and Play" lecture in 1966 or as
late as Ihab Hassan's usage in The Dismemberment of Orpheus in 1971.
In all the circumstances above, it should be noted that the prefix
"post' does not necessari1y however imply a new era, but could
rather suggest a reaction against modernism.
Post-War Developments and Transition Figures
Much as the postmodernist literature fails to refer to everything
written in the postmodern period, many post-war developments in
literature like the Theatre of the Absurd, the Beat Generation, and
Magical Realism have significant similarities. These developments
are occasionally collectively referred to as "postmodern", some of the
main personalities identified and cited as contributors to the
postmodern aesthetic are Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs,
Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Jarry's surrealistic work, Antonin Artaud, Luigi Pirandello, among
others made impact on the playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd.
Martin Esslin coined the term "Theatre of the Absurd" to describe a
tendency in theatre in the 1950's. Relating this term to Albert
Camus's concept of the absurd, later scholars discovered that the
plays of the Theatre of the Absurd parallel postmodern fiction in
many ways. The Bald Soprano by Eugene lonesco for example is
essentially a series of cliches taken from a language textbook. Samuel
Beckett towers above the figure of those regarded as being both
Absurdist and Postmodern writers. His works are often regarded as
the starting point of shift from modernism to postmodernism in
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literature. His close ties with modernism were a result of his
friendship with James Joyce. His works however helped to shape the
development of literature away from modernism. One of the
exemplars of modernism, Joyce, celebrated the possibility of
language while Beckett had a revelation in 1945 that, in order to
escape the shadow of Joyce, he must focus on the poverty of
language and men as a failure. His later work equally reflected
characters trapped in inescapable situations attempting helplessly to
communicate with the resource to play and make the best of what
they have. Beckett's experiments with narrative form and with the
disintegration of narration and character in fiction and drama won
him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His works published after
1969 are mostly meta-literary attempts that must be read in light of
his own theories and previous works and the attempt to deconstruct
literary forms and genres. Beckett's last text published during his
lifetime, Stirring Still (1988), breaks down the barriers between
drama, fiction, and poetry, with texts of echoes and reiterations of his
previous work. He is referred to as one of the fathers of the
postmodern movement fiction which has continued to undermine the
ideas of logical coherence in narration, formal plot, regular time
sequence, and psychologically explained characters.
In the novel genre, William S. Burroughs, a writer associated with the
Beat generation appears constantly on the list of postmodern writers.
His published text Naked Lunch (1959) in Paris and later in America
1961 is considered as the first truly postmodern novel by some
people, due to its fragmentary nature, with no central narrative.
Naked Lunch is noted for its use of pastiche to fold in elements from
popular genres such as detective fiction, as well as science fiction; it's
full of parody, paradox, and playfulness. He is also noted, along with
Brion Gysin, for the creation of the "cut-up" technique, a technique
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(similar to Tzara's "Dadaist poem") in which word without phrases
are cut from a newspaper or other publication and rearranged to
form a new message. This is the technique he used to create novels
such as Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded.
Postmodernism in literature is not an organized movement with
leaders or central figures; therefore, it is more difficult to say if it has
ended or when it will end. Some declared the death of
postmodernism in 80's with a new surge of realism by Raymond
Carver. With this new emphasis on realism in mind, some declared
White noise in 1985 or The Satanic Verses in 1988 to be the last great
novels of the postmodern era. However, with the publications such
as Mcsweeney's, The Believer, and The Onion, the declaration of the
death of postmodernism is arguably premature.
Common Themes and Techniques often Associated with
postmodern Literature include: irony, playfulness, black humour,
pastiche, metafiction, temporal distortion, technoculture and
hyperreality, paranoia, maximalism, etc.
Irony is a term used in literature to describe a statement or action
whose apparent meaning is coated by a contrary meaning.
Postmodern fiction generally has the characteristics of ironic quote
marks, making much of it to be taken as tongue-in-cheek. The irony,
along with black humour and the general concept of ‘play’ (coined
from Derrida’s concept of Roland Barthes advocated ideas in The
Pleasure of the Text) are part of the core essence or aspects of
postmodernism. It is noted that one common feature of the
postmodernists is to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous
way. Several novelists that were later labeled postmodern were first
collectively labeled black humorists. The way that Heller, Vonnegut,
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and Pynchon addressed the events of World War 1l gives one the
idea of the view on the common convention of the postmodernists to
treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous manner.
Pastiche. In pastiche (which means a piece of creative work,
especially in literature, drama, or art); a mixture of things borrowed
from other works are exploited to develop this sub genre. Pastiche
initiates and satirizes another work or style. In postmodernist
literature, this can be homage to, or a parody of past styles. Pastiche
can be regarded as a representation of the chaotic, pluralistic, or
information - drenched aspects of postmodern society. It can be a
combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to
comment on situations in post modernity: for example; in the works
of literature where science fiction, detective fiction, fairy tales, etc are
used jointly to create a textbook. Although pastiche commonly refers
to the mixing of genres, many other elements are also included.
Elements like metafiction and temporal distortion are common in the
broader pastiche of the postmodern novel. Pastiche can equally be
used to refer to compositional technique, like the cut - up technique
employed by Burroughs or B. S. Johnson's 1969 novel The
Unfortunates, which was released in a box with no binding, making
the readers to assemble it how-ever they chose.
Metafiction. Fiction that comments upon the act of writing the story
the reader is reading is known as metafiction. Metafiction is largely
referred to as fiction about nature of literature i.e. fiction writing that
deals, often playfully and parodically, with the nature of fiction, the
techniques and conventions used in it, and the role of the author. In
metafiction, there is foregrounding of the apparatus, making the
artificiality of art or the fictionality of fiction apparent to the reader
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and generally disregards the necessity for "willful suspension of
disbelief". Metafiction is often employed to undermine the authority
of the author, for unexpected narrative shifts, to advance a story in a
unique way, for emotional distance, or to comment on the act of
storytelling. Kurt Vonnegut commonly used this technique as the
first chapter of his 1969 novel Slaughter House Five about the process
of writing the novel and calls attention to his own presence
throughout the novel. Though much of the novel has to do with
Vonnegut's own experiences during the firebombing of Dresden,
Vonnegut continually points out that the artificiality of the central
narrative are that which contains obviously fictional elements such as
aliens and time travel.
Histographic Metafiction
This term was coined by Linda Hutcheon to refer to works that
fictionalize actual historical events or figures; in some cases the term
is referred to as faction. Examples: D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers,
William Shakespear's Julius Caesar. Other notable examples are
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in His Labyrinths (about Simon
Boliver) and 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 Lung). John
Fowles deals similarly with the Victorian period in The French
Lieutenants Women.
Temporal Distortion
In postmodern fiction, temporal distortion is used in a variety of
ways, often for the irony. Historiographic metafiction is an example
of this. Temporal distortion was commonly used in modernist fiction,
but fragmentation and non-linear narratives are central features of
both modern and postmodern literature. Distortions in time are
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central features in many of Kurt Vonnegut's non-linear novels, the
most famous of which is perhaps Billy Pilgrim in Slaughter House Five
becoming "upstuck in time". Ishmael Reed in Flight to Canada deals
playfully with anachronisms, as in the case of Abraham Lincoln
using a telephone. (Anachronism means chronological mistake, i.e.
The representation of somebody or something out of chronological
order or in the wrong historical setting. e.g. Abraham Lincoln (18091865) 16th president of the United States of America (1861-1865) was
late before the use of telephone, as Alexander Graham Bell invented
and inaugurated a widespread use of the telephone and received the
patent on March 7, 1876). In. temporal distortion, time may also
overlap, repeat, or bifurcate into multiple possibilities. Example of
this is in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" from Pricksongs and
Descants, in which 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 favoured as the correct version.
Tecnoculture and Hyperreality
Fredric Jameson called postmodernism the "cultural logic of late
capitalism". "Late capitalism" as a term implies that society has
moved past the industrial age and into the information age. Jean
Baudrillard on the other hand claimed that post modernity was
defined by shift into hyperreality in which simulations have replaced
the real. People are overwhelmed with information in post
modernity, technology has become a central focus in many lives, and
our understanding of the real is mediated by simulations of the real.
Many works of fiction have dealt with this aspect of post modernity
with characteristic irony and pastiche. For example, Don Lelilo's
White Noise presents characters that are bombarded with a "White
noise" of television, product brand names, and clichés. The
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cyberpunk fiction (i.e. futuristic science fiction featuring characters
living in darkly frightening futuristic world dominated by computer
technology) of William Gibson, Neat Stephenson, and many others
use science fiction techniques to address this postmodern, hyper real
information bombardment.
Paranoia. The sense of the paranoia has to do with an ordering
system behind the chaos of the world. For the postmodernist, no
ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd. If
one reads the book with particular bias, then he or she is going to be
frustrated. This often coincides with the theme of techno culture and
hyperreality. In Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, the
character Dwayne Hoover becomes violent when he is convinced that
everyone else in the world is a robot and he only is human.
Maximalism. This term was coined by some critics, who have
observed the sprawling canvas of fragmented narrative as a
generating controversy on the "purpose" of a novel as narrative and
the standards by which it should be judged. The postmodern position
is that the style of a novel must be appropriate to what it depicts and
represents, and points back to such examples in previous ages as
Francois Rabelais Gargantua and Homer's Odyssey. Modernist critics
have however attacked the maximalist novel as being disorganized,
sterile and filled with language play for its own sake, empty of
emotional commitment - and therefore empty of value as a novel.
Yet, there are counter-examples, where postmodern narrative
coexists with emotional commitment.
POSTMODERNISM AND ITS CRITICS
Broad as the postmodernist theories are, it has been noted that the
concept is highly debated even among the postmodernists
21
themselves. From Weiss and Wesley's anthropological viewpoints,
certain keywords like modernity, post modernity, modernization,
modernism, postmodernism, need to be clearly defined for a clearer
understanding of the philosophy behind postmodernism. According
to them:
Modernity - came into being with the Renaissance. Modernity
implies "the progressive economic and administrative rationalization
and differentiation of the social world". The term therefore essentially
emerged in the context of the development of the capitalist state.
Anthropologists have been working towards studying modern times,
but have now gone past that. The fundamental act of modernity is to
question the foundations of past knowledge.
Post modernity. Logically postmodernism literally means "after
modernity. It refers to the incipient or actual dissolution of those
social forms associated with modernity" (Sarup: 1993).
Modernization is used to define the term often used to refer to the
stages of social development which are based upon industrialization.
Modernization is a diverse unity of socio-economic changes
generated by scientific and technological discoveries and
innovations. (Sarup: 1993)
Modernism is an experiment in finding the inner truths of a
situation. It can be characterized by self - consciousness and
reflexiveness. This is very closely related to postmodernism (Sarup:
1993).
Postmodernism. in the words of Sarup, "there is a sense in which if
one sees modernism as the culture of modernity, postmodernism is
22
the culture of post modernity" (1993). There is a general belief that
choice becomes meaningless in postmodernism.
Baudrillard in his contribution stated the need to come to terms with
the second revolution, "that of the Twentieth Century of post
modernity which is the immense process of the destruction of
meaning equal to the earlier destruction of appearances. Whoever
lives by meaning dies by meaning" (Ashley: 199).
"Post modernity" to Weiss and Wesley "concentrates on the tensions
of difference and similarity erupting from processes of globalization:
the accelerating circulation of people, the increasingly dense and
frequent cross-cultural interactions of local and global knowledge"
(ua.ed.).
To Bishop, "postmodernists are suspicious of authoritative definitions
and singular narratives of any trajectory of events” (993).
Poastmodernists can be broadly divided into two camps: Skeptical
Postmodernists and Affirmative Postmodernists. While the skeptics
are extremely critical of the modern subject and reject any
understanding of time, affirmative postmodernist equally rejects theory
claims by denying claims of truth. They are less rigid than the
skeptics.
Some Noted Differences between Modern and Postmodern
Thought
Weiss and Wesley categorized the major differences between the
Modern and Postmodern Thinking and listed the key elements as in
the table below:
23
Reasoning
Science
Part/whole
God
Language
Source:
Modern
From Foundation Upwards
Postmodern
Multiple factors of
multiple levels of
reasoning. Web
oriented.
Universal optimism
Realism of Limitations
Parts comprise the whole
The whole is more than
the parts.
Acts by violating “natural Top – Down causation.
laws” or by “immanence” in
everything that is.
Referential
Meaning
in
social
context through usage.
.fuller.edu/-clameter/phd/post modern.html
Critical Views
Appignanesi and Garrat noted that "modernity" takes its Latin origin
from "modo", which means "just now". The Postmodern, then literally
means "after just now". Other areas that attract similar response to
postmodernism include postcolonialism and poststructuralism. The
term "postcolonialism" has been attributed to stand for a description
of institutional conditions in formerly colonial societies. It equally
means an abstract term that stands for the global situation after the
colonial period or still as a description of discourses informed by
psychological and epistemological orientations. An important feature
of postcolonialist thought is its assertion that modernism and
modernity are parts of the colonial project of domination.
24
Poststructuralism. In the views of Pierre Bourdieu holds the idea that
structural models should not be replaced but enriched. Post
structuralist like Bourdieu are interested in reflexivity and the search
for logical practice. By this act, accounts of the participants’
behaviour and meanings are not subjectified by the observer.
Major criticisms on postmodernism have focused on the examination
of the moral nature of the models as regards the definition of
objectivity and subjectivity. Roy D. Andrade has argued that there
must be a separation between moral and objective models because
"they are counterproductive in discovering how the world works."
(402)
Rosenau on his part identifies seven contradictions in postmodernism
which include that:
1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of
reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is
itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it
otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in
isolation.
5. By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory,
postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid
criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism,
but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth
claims in their own writings.
25
For Melford Spiro, "the causal account of culture refers to ecological
niches, modes of production, subsistence techniques, and so forth,
just as a causal account of mind refers to the finding of neurons, the
secretions of hormones, the action of neurotransmitters ...”
John Searle's "Rationality and Realism" published in 1993 contain six
interrelated propositions which Spiro addressed. Spiro's stands are
that:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Reality exists independently of human representations. If this
is true then, contrary to postmodernism, this postulate supports
the existence of "mind - independent external reality" which is
called "metaphysical realism".
Language communicates meanings but also refers to objects
and situations in the world which exist independently of
language. Contrary to postmodernism, this postulate supports
the concept of language as having communicative and
referential functions.
Statements are true or false depending on whether the objects
and situations to which they refer correspond to a greater or
lesser degree to the statements. This "correspondence theory" of
truth is to some extent the theory of truth for postmodernists as
"essentialist”.
Knowledge is objective: - This signifies that the motive, culture,
or gender of the person who makes the claim. Knowledge
depends on empirical support.
Logic and rationality provide a set of procedures and methods,
which contrary to postmodernism, enables a researcher to asses
competing knowledge claims through proof, validity and
reason.
26
6.
Objective and intersubjective criteria judge the merit of
statements, theories, interpretations and all accounts.
Spiro agrees with postmodernists that the social sciences require very
different techniques for the study of humanity than do the natural
sciences, but "while insight and empathy are critical in the study of
mind and culture..., intellectual responsibility requires objective
(scientific methods) in the social sciences. Without objective
procedures ethnography is empirically dubious and intel1ectually
irresponsible"
Authorities in Postmodern Ideas and their Views
Names that are often associated with postmodernism include Jean
Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Michael
Foucault and Nancy Scheper-Hughes.
Jean- Francois Lyotard holds the view that "the postmodern would
be that which in the modern invokes the unpresentable in
presentation itself, that which refuses the consolation of correct
forms, refuses the consensus of taste permitting a common
experience of nostalgia for the impossible, and inquires into new
presentations-not to take pleasures in them, but to better produce the
feeling that there is something unpresentable." Lyotard attacks many
of the modern age traditions, such as the "Grand" Narrative or what
Lyotard termed the meta (master) narrative. In contrast to the
ethnographies written by anthropologists in the first half of the 20th
century, Lyotard states that an all encompassing account of a culture
cannot be accomplished.
Jean Baudrillard. A sociologist who started his career by exploring
the Marxist critique of capitalism, Baudrillard argued that "consumer
27
objects constitute a system of signs that differentiate the population"
(Sarup: 162). When he realized that Marxist teachings failed to
effectively
evaluate
commodities,
Baudrillard
turned
to
postmodernism. Baudrillard has however been termed a skeptical
postmodernist by Rosenau because of his expressions claiming that
“every thing has already happened ... nothing new can occur," or that
"there is no real world. “Baudrillard is said to break down modernity
and post modernity in an effort to explain the world as a set of
models. He identifies early modernity as the period between the
Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, modernity as the period
at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and post modernity as the
period of mass media (cinema and photography). Baudrillard states
that we live in a world of images but images that are only
simulations. He implies that many people fail to understand this
concept that "we have now moved into an epoch ... where truth is
entirely a product of consensus values, and where 'science' itself is
just the name we attach to certain modes of explanation." (Norris:
169).
Jacques Derrida (1930- ) identified as a poststructuralist and a
skeptical postmodernist, Derrida's writing emphasizes the
deconstruction of texts and probing the relationship of meaning
between texts (see Bishop: 1270). Derrida observes that "a text
employs its own stratagems against it, producing a force of
dislocation that spreads itself through an entire system. Derrida
directly attacks Western philosophy's understanding of reason. He
sees reason as dominated by "a metaphysics of presence." Derrida
agrees with structuralism's insight, that meaning is not inherent in
signs, but he proposes that it is incorrect to infer that anything
reasoned can be used as a stable and timeless model
(Appignanesi:77).
28
Michael Foucault (1926-1984). A French Philosopher, Foucault
attempted to show that what most people think of as the permanent
truths of human nature and society actually change throughout the
course of history. While challenging the influences of Marx and
Freud, Foucault postulated that everyday practices enabled people to
define their identities and systemize knowledge. Foucault's study of
power and its shifting patterns is one of the foundations of
postmodernism. He is considered a postmodern theorist precisely
because his work upsets the conventional understanding of history as
a chronology of inevitable facts. Alternatively, he depicts history as
under layers of suppressed and unconscious knowledge in and
throughout history. Appignanesi stated that, "these under layers are
the codes and assumptions of order, the structures of exclusion that
legitimate the epistemes (sic) by which societies achieve identities
(83).
Nancy Scheper - Hughes (1944) advocates that ethnographies be
used as tools for critical reflection and human liberation because she
feels that "ethics" make culture possible. Since culture is preceded by
ethics, therefore, ethics cannot be culturally bound as argued by
anthropologists in the past. The crux of her postmodern perspective
is that, anthropologists, no less than any other professionals, should
be held accountable for how they have used and how they have
failed to use anthropology as a critical tool at crucial historical
moments. The act of "witnessing" lends the word of anthropologists
its moral, at times almost theological character." (419).
Major Concepts Related to Postmodernism
Some principal concepts that are related to postmodernism are
"Realism", "Self-Reflexivity” and “Relativism”.
29
Realism has its anchor on Plato's postulation that universal forms or
abstractions exist independently of mind.
Self Reflexivity leads to a consciousness of the process of knowledge
creation and equally emphasizes the point of theoretical and practical
questioning changing the ethnographers' view of themselves and
their work.
Relativism Quoting Gellner, Weiss and Wesley highlight on the
relativistic - functionalist view of thought that goes back to the
Enlightenment. "The (unresolved) dilemma, which the thought of the
Enlightenment faced, was between relativist claims of enlightened
reason. Viewing man as part of nature ... requires (us) to see
cognitive and evaluative activities as part of nature too, and hence
varying from organism to organism and context to context.”
Special Features of Postmodernism
One of the essential elements of postmodernism is that it constitutes
an attack against theory and methodology. In a sense a proponent
claim to relinquish all attempts to create new knowledge in a
systematic fashion, but substitutes an "anti-rules" fashion of
discourse. The claim above "not withstanding, two methodologies
inherent in postmodernism are interdependent due to the fact that
interpretation is inherent in Deconstruction...
Deconstruction
emphasizes
negative
critical
capacity.
Deconstruction involves demystifying a text to reveal internal
arbitrary hierarchies and presuppositions by examining the margins
of a text, the effort of deconstruction concentrates on examining what
it represses, what it does not say, and its incongruities. It does not
30
solely unmask error, but redefines the text by undoing and reversing
polar opposites. Deconstruction does not resolve inconsistencies, but
rather exposes hierarchies involved for the distillation of information.
Rosenau's Guidelines for Deconstruction Analysis
Rosenau propounded the following theories for deconstruction
analysis of a text. They include his idea for a critic to:
*Find an exception to a generalization in a text and push it to the
limit so that this generalization appears absurd. Use the exception to
undermine principle.
*Interpret the arguments in a text being deconstructed in their most
extreme form.
*Avoid absolute statements and cultivate intellectual excitement by
making statements that are both startling and sensational.
*Deny the legitimacy of dichotomies because there are always a few
exceptions.
*Nothing is to be accepted, nothing is to be rejected. It is extremely
difficult to criticize a deconstructive argument if no clear viewpoint is
expressed.
*Write so as to permit the greatest number of interpretations possible
... obscurity may, "protect from serious scrutiny." The idea is "to
create a text without finality or completion, one with which the
reader can never be finished".
*Employ new and unusual terminology in order that "familiar
positions may not seem too familiar and otherwise obvious
scholarship may not seem so obviously relevant".
*"Never consent to a change of terminology and always insist that the
wording of the deconstructive argument is sacrosanct." More familiar
formulations undermine any sense that the deconstructive argument
31
is sacrosanct." More familiar formulations undermine any sense that
the deconstructive position is unique.
Intuitive Interpretation. Postmodern interpretation is introspective
and anti-objectivist, which a form of individualized understanding is.
It is more a vision than data observation. For postmodernists there
are an endless number of interpretations. Foucault argues that
everything is interpretation. There is no final meaning for any
particular sign, no notion of unitary sense of text, no interpretation
can be regarded as superior to any other (Latour: 182-3). Antipositivists defend the notion that every interpretation is false.
"Interpretative anthropology is a covering label for a diverse set of
reflections upon 'the practice of ethnography and the concept of
culture" (Weiss and Wesley: mdmurphy@tenhoor.as.ua.edu).
Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses as A postmodernist Novel
Introduction
Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses was banned in the Middle East
due to the fact that the book deconstructs “grand narratives”. The rise
of religious fundamentalism as a form of resistance to the questioning
of the “grand narratives” of religious truth came into limelight
because of the new awareness created in the concept of
postmodernism.
“Grand Narratives” is a theory propounded by Lyotard and is
interpreted as a kind of meta-theory, or meta-ideology, i.e. an
ideology that explains an ideology as with Marxism, a story that is
told to explain the belief systems that exists. Rushdies’s novel, The
Satanic Verses is a story that is told by the author to explain the belief
system that exists, especially as it has to do with the Muslim
fundamentalism in the Middle East.
32
Rushdie’s Challenge of the “Grand Narratives” of the Muslim
Religion
Salmon Rushdie was born in 1947, a British novelist of Indian
descent. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988) combined fantasy,
philosophical ruminations, and comic aspects and was well received
in the United Kingdom. The book however aroused the anger of
many Muslims who considered it an attack on the Qur’ an (Koran),
Muhammad, and the Islamic faith. With its five hundred and six
pages, the book is best placed under the category of magic realism
novel genre.
The novel made use of current affairs and personalities in history,
especially that depending on the life of the founder of Muslim
religion, Muhammad to create the characters and themes in the book.
Amitabh Bacchan who surfaces as the main protagonist of the book
was an Indian film actor. The novel stipulates that Muhammad (who
founded the Muslim religion) got “tricked into revealing these verses
as part of the Qur’ a by Satan and he later retracted them, saying the
angel Jibreel had told him to do so” (Wikipedia). The title of the book
represents the signified issue known as the satanic verses and these
verses give room for prayers of intercession to be made to three
pagan goddesses: Allat, al-Uzza, and Manat. Each of these three
goddesses had a shrine in separate places close to Muhammad’s birth
place and starting point of his mission in Mecca, Arabia. Rushdie
depended on the historical accounts of al-Waqidi and al-Tabari about
the life of Muhammad to write his novel, The Satanic Verses.
Though the book reached the final stage of the Booker Price award in
1988, the Muslims generally rejected the book and held its contents as
blasphemous. The general controversy surrounding the book led to
33
its being banned in the United Kingdom. Pakistan, South Africa,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia also banned the work. In 1989, Iran’s
religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (edict)
declaring that Rushdie be put to death.
The Plot of the novel
The Satanic Verses is made up of a frame narrative, making use of
elements of magical realism. This is joined with a series of sub-plots
that are narrated as dream visions experienced by one of the
protagonists. Like other works of Rushdie, the frame narrative
portrays Indian expatriates in the present day England. The two
protagonists, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, are both actors
of Indian Muslim background. Farishta is a Bollywood superstar
with specialization in playing Hindu deities, while Chamcha is an
emigrant who has broken with his Indian identity and works as a
voice over artists in England. Both characters were trapped in a
hijacked plane during a flight from India to Britain, at the beginning
of the novel. As the aero plane exploded over the English Channel,
the two characters were magically saved. In a miraculous
transformation, Farishta took on the personality of the archangel
Gibreel, while Chamcha took on that of a devil. The transformation
by Farishta realistically stands for the developing dissociative
identity disorder of the protagonist.
After being found on the beach, Chamcha is taken into custody by
the police, who suspected him of being an illegal immigrant, while
Farishta looked on without intervening. Both characters struggled to
put their broken lives back together. Farishta sought and found his
lost love, the English mountaineer Allie Cone, but their relationship
was overshadowed by his mental illness. After Chamcha had
miraculously recovered from his personality disorder, he intended to
34
take revenge on Farishta for having forsaken him after their common
fall from the hijacked plane. This he did by nursing the hereditary
jealously of Farishta, thereby destroying his relationship with Allie.
In another moment of crisis, Farishta realized what Chamcha has
done, but forgave him and equally saved his life.
Both characters later returned to India. Farishta still suffering from
his illness, killed Allie in another outbreak of jealousy and then
committed suicide. Chamcha, who has found not only forgiveness
form Farishta but also reconciliation with his strayed father and his
own Indian identity, decided to remain in India.
Inside this novel is firmly fixed series of half – magic dream vision
narratives, ascribed to the disturbed mind of Gibreel Farishta. They
are linked together by many thematic details as well as by the
common motifs of divine revelation, religious faith and fanaticism,
and doubt as to whether any conception of God is rationally
justifiable.
One of these sequences contains most of the elements that have been
criticized as offensive to Muslims. It is a transformed re-narration of
the life of the prophet Muhammad (called “Mohound” or the
“Messenger” in the novel) in Mecca (“Jahilia”). At its centre is the
episode of the Satanic Verses, in which the prophet first proclaims a
revelation in favour of the old polytheistic deities, but later renounces
this as an error induced by Shaitan. There are also two opponents of
the “Messenger”: a demonic heathen priestess, Hind, and an
irreverent skeptic and satirical poet, Baal. On the return of the
prophet triumphantly to the City, Baal goes into hiding in an
underground brothel, where the prostitutes take on the identities of
the prophet’s wives. One of the prophet’s companions claims also
35
that he, doubting the “Messenger’s authority, has subtly altered
portions of the Qur’ an as they were dictated to him.
The Ayesha story forms the second sequence of the novel. Ayesha is
an Indian peasant girl that claims to be receiving revelations given by
Archangel Gibreel in the story. She makes claim that all her village
people could make it on foot across the Arabian Sea, while urging
them to start a foot pilgrimage to Mecca.
The pilgrimage ends in a catastrophic climax as the believers all
trekked into the water and disappear; in the midst of very disturbing
conflicting testimonies from observers on if they just drowned or
were in fact miraculously able to cross the sea.
The figure of a fanatic expatriate religious leader, the “Imam”
presented in a late 20th – century setting was exhibited in the third
dream sequence. Using the figure of the “Messenger” with other
various recurrent narrative motifs, the life of Ayatollah Khomeini in
his Parisian exile is clearly alluded to as the fanatic expatriate
religious leader.
The Relationship of Satan and the Satanic Verses
Satan as a rebellious angel and tempter of man in the Christian
religious view point caused the first sin of man by making Adam and
Eve to disobey God through eating the forbidden fruit. Genesis 3:1-7
of the Holy Bible states that:
Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the creatures
the LORD GOD had made. “Really?” he asked the
woman. “Did God really say you must not eat any of
the fruit in the garden? “Of course we may eat it, “the
woman told him. “It’s only the fruit from the tree of the
36
center of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God
says we must not eat it or even touch it or we will die.”
“You won’t die!” the serpent hissed. “God knows that
your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become
just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.”
The woman was convinced. The fruit looked so fresh\
and delicious, and it would make her so wise! So she ate
some of the fruit. She also gave some to her husband, who
was with her. Then he ate it, too. At that moment, their
eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at
their nakedness. So they strung fig leaves together around
their hips to cover themselves.
(New living Translation: Ilumina)
Looking at the points above, some scholars have argued that the
concept of Satan was the result of ‘’gradual’’ theological
developments’’ as the Bible did not originally hold the view of Satan
but the serpent (i.e. snake); (see Zeshan). Revelation 12:9 however
mentions Satan, and associates it with the serpent:
This great dragon the ancient serpent called the devil,
or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world. Was thrown
down to the earth with all his angels (NLT: Ilumina)
Also see Revelation 20:2 where the Bible refers to the ‘’old serpent” as
the Devil, Satan. Muslims however hold the view that Satan’s
primary role started with disobeying God, when he refused to bow to
Adam, and also being responsible for Adam’s eating of the forbidden
fruit and expulsion from paradise.
Going by the Biblical standards however, it will be assumed from the
Genesis point of view that what is seen as Satan is a snake (i.e. an
animal ‘’more crafty than any other wild animal’’, and not an angel
or jinn. Genesis 6:1 - 4 however recorded the story of a ‘’rebellion’’ of
angels, which is represented by the unlawful mating of the angels
37
and humans, which eventually culminated in God’s destruction of
the then world with the flood.
The study of the Biblical and Qur’anic accounts of the gradual
development of Satan into constant tempter of mankind shows an
interesting point that conservative Muslims have generally advocated
strict adherence to the traditions of Islam, believing religion to be a
static truth with little room for change. The analysis of the history of
Satan shows however that the religious narratives of Islam, such as
that of Satan, were themselves the result of many changes over time.
This view has a strong ability to uphold a more dynamic view of
religion as a truth that evolves over time, just as the figure of Satan
has evolved over time.
The Qur’an, in agreement with the gospels and post – Biblical
traditions however developed role for Satan as a rebellious tempter.
Satan is referred to in it by two proper names; Shytan, an Arabic
rendering of the Hebrew word ‘Satan’’ and Iblis, which is most likely
an Arabic contraction of the Greek translations of the Bible. In the
Qur’anic view of Satan, it states that:
Surely we created man of a clay of mud molded, And
the jinn created we before of fire flaming. And when
thy lord said to the angels,’ See, I am creating a mortal
of clay of mud molded. When I have shaped him, and
breathed my spirit in him, fall you down, bowing
before him’. Then the angels bowed themselves all
together, save Iblis; he refused to be among those bowing.
Said He, ‘what ails thee, Iblis that thou art not among
those bowing? Said he, I would neve bow myself
before a mortal whom thou hast created of clay
of mud molded.’ Said He, ‘Then go thou forth hence;
38
thou art accursed. Upon thee shall rest this curse, till the
Day of Doom’… Said he, ‘My lord, for thy perverting me
I shall deck all fair to them in the earth, and I shall
pervert them, all together, excepting those thy servants
among them that are devoted’ (Qur’an 15: 26 – 40).
The mythological figure of Satan was expanded over the centuries
until it could reach the level of removing the responsibility of
sinfulness away from God, and the Qur ‘an continued this theological
approach as the historical evolution of Satan, to remove sin from
God, shown above. The detail of this mythological language is the
result of centuries - long development of Jewish traditions which the
Qur’an adopts as its own history.
The academic discussions on the religious antecedents of this topic
tends to indicate the realization that the story of Satan in the Qur ‘an
is the final result of a complex theological development. The story
has a central place in the Qur‘anic picture of the world; the fact that
this story itself has evolved over time would help to support the idea
of a revelation that changes over time rather than remaining static. In
the words of Zeeshan:
Salman Rushdie’s publication of ‘’the satanic verses’’ was one
of the biggest Islam – related headlines of the two decades. But
the mass outpouring of anti – Rushdie sentiment that took
place was remarkable in that it completely overlooked the most
important fact of Rushdie’s book; namely, that the tale of the
‘’Satanic verses’’ (i.e. Qur’anic verses which temporarily
accepted some of the pagan goddesses of Mecca, but which
were later denied as having been inspired by Satan), was
completely based on the work of al – Tabari, a Muslim
biographer of the prophet. Analysis of the historical account of
39
al- Tabari makes possible a fuller understanding of both Satan
and prophecy in Islam. (Satan. htm).
The argument still goes that an interesting thing about al – Tabari‘s
account is his assertion that Satan cast the false verses into the
prophet’s mind ‘’because of his inner debates’’. Such an
interpretation of the events is in agreement with an understanding of
Satan as a psychological rather than literal interpretation of Satan by
identifying him as ‘’jinn’’:
And when We said to the angels, ‘Bow yourselves
To Adam’; so they bowed themselves; save Iblis;
He was one of the jinn, and committed ungodliness
Against his Lord’s command (Qur’ an 18: 50)
‘’Jinn’’ is explained to mean ‘’a pre – Islamic word for an unseen
being which can speak to people and even make them irrational
(hence the Arabic word for madness is Majnoon, literally ‘’acted
upon by jinn’’). Satan /Iblis is then the irrational urge which arose
out of the prophet’s human weakness and his desperation to
compromise with the Meccans, and drove him to insert the “Satanic
verses” into the revelation. (Zeeshan. htm.)
Critical Appraisals of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses as a
Postmodernist novel
Major parallel stories that alternate dream and reality sequences exist
within the book, The Satanic Verses. The stories are tied together by
the recurring names of the characters in each, thereby proving
intertexts within each novel with comment on the other stories. The
book also exhibits Rushdie’s common practice of using allusions so as
to involve connotative links. The satiric nature of the work, in the
spirit of postmodern novel, exhibits Rushdie’s zealousness in
organizing his work in terms of parallel stories.
40
The Satanic Verses is equally seen as a fundamental study of alienation
by Rushdie. In the words of Muhammad Mashuq ibn Ally, “The
Satanic Verses is about identity, alienation, rootless ness, brutality,
compromise, and conformity. These concepts confront all migrants,
disillusioned with both cultures; the one they are in and the one they
join. Yet knowing they cannot live a life of anonymity, they mediate
between them both. The Satanic Verses is a reflection of the author’s
dilemmas. “(Wikipedia).
On the religious/anthropological ground, Rushdie seems to centrally
show an interest in exploring how migration heightens one’s
awareness that perceptions of reality are relative and fragile, and of
the nature of religious faith and revelation, not to mention the
political manipulation of religion. Rushdie’s own assumptions about
the importance of literature, which parallel in some sense the literal
value accorded the written word in Islamic tradition. There is
however the view that Rushdie seems to have assumed that diverse
communities and cultures share some degree of common moral
ground on the basis of which dialogue can be pieced together, and it
is perhaps for this reason that he underestimated the implacable
nature of the hostility evoked by The Satanic Verses even though a
major theme of that novel is the dangerous nature of closed,
absolutist belief systems.
Islam is noted for its strong opposition to idolatry, polytheism or
associating anything or anyone with God. It is noteworthy that
Islam’s creed in Arabic begins with a negative: Not is there a god
except God. This shows a sharp contrast with the contention of
Muhammad’s Arab contemporaries that God has associates. Some of
these associates are even mentioned in the Qur-‘an .Among them are
three female deities: al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. The Qur’an, in its
41
present form rejects these deities. The problem is such that even
though the present day Qur’an has rejected these female deities, did
the original Qur’an and Muhammad always reject them?
Muhammad’s alienation to his tribal men while he sojourned in
Mecca led him to seek for better relations and reconciliation with his
community. What followed this was God’s revelation to Muhammad
in Surah 53 verses 19, 20 which read as follows:
Have you thought upon al-Lat and al –Uzza?
And Manat, the third, the other? (53:19, 20)
The verses known today as the satanic verses, originally then, follows
as below:
These are the exalted cranes (intermediaries)
Whose intercession is to be hoped for?
The cranes referred to above, whose intercession is to be hoped for,
are interpreted to be the three deities (i.e. al – Lat, al – Uzza and
Manat) whose separate shrines are near Mecca in Arabia, where
Muhammad was born and began his mission. They were even
considered to be daughters of God. The accounts of competent
Muslim scholars like al-Tabari and Ibn sa’d state that after the
‘Satanic Verses’ revelation made above, Muhammad, his followers
and the pagan Arabs all prostrated and thereafter eased off tensions,
while the culminating reconciliation brought joy and delight to them.
Surprisingly, Muhammad soon retracted the reconciliation (although
the length of time is not stated). The accounts of scholars goes on to
state that Jibril (Gabriel), the angel of revelation, informed
Muhammad that Satan had used his (Muhammad’s) desire for
reconciliation with the pagan leaders to insert into a revelation of
God verses about the interceding cranes, otherwise called “the
42
satanic verses”. The verses below, which are not satanic verses, serve
as the proper sequence to 53:19, 20 (above):
Are yours the males and His the females?
That indeed was an unfair division (53:21, 22)
This can be interpreted as follows: “When you Arabs have sons
(whom you prefer to daughters!), how unfair of you to say that God
has daughters! The idea of a plurality of goddesses or sons or
daughters of God is ridiculous. God alone is God. The three
goddesses are false.
Two other passages stated from the Qur’an are considered to have
made reference to the compromise, between Muhammad and the
Arabs, and Muhammad’s eventual rejection of it. The first states:
And they indeed strove to beguile thee (Muhammad)
Away from that wherewith we (God) have inspired thee,
That thou shouldest invent other than it against us; and
Then would they have accepted thee as a friend.
And if we had not made the wholly firm thou mightest
Almost have inclined unto them a little. Then had we
Made thee taste a double (Punishment) of living and a double
(Punishment) of dying, then hadst thou found no helper against
us. (17:73-75)
The second passage is intended to comfort Muhammad:
Never sent we a messenger or a Prophet
Before thee but when He recited (the message)
Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited
thereof. But Allah abolishes that which Satan proposedth. Then
Allah establisheth His revelations. Allah is knower, Wise;
That He may make that which the devil proposeth
43
A temptation for those in whose hearts is a disease,
And those whose hearts are hardened – Lo! The evil doers are
in open schism (22:52, 53)
On the basis of these verses especially, the contemporary designation
“The Satanic Verses” arises.
Conclusion
One striking fact surrounding the success of Salmon Rushdie’s The
Satanic Verses is the hidden agenda of the constructions of British
pluralism - who it includes and who it rejects, the political context of
the book notwithstanding.
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses has generated high controversy among
the Muslim countries due to its deconstruction of the grand
narratives of religious truth of Islam. The Supreme Leader of Iran and
a Shi’a Muslim scholar, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa
calling on all good Muslims to kill Rushdie and his publishers, or to
point him out to those who can kill him if they cannot themselves.
Rushdie was however placed under the police protection by the
British governments. Despite a conciliatory statement by Iran in 1998
and Rushdie’s declaration that he would stop living in hiding, the
Iranian state news agency reported in 2006 that the fatwa will remain
in place permanently since fatwa can only be rescinded by the person
who first issued them and Ayatollah Khomeini is dead.
Rushdie has not been physically harmed as of early 2008, but others
connected with the book have suffered violent attacks. They include
the Japanese language translator of the book, Hitoshi Igarashi who
was stabbed to death on July 11, 1991;Ettore Capriolo, the Italian
language translator, who was seriously injured in a stabbing the
44
same month, and William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, who
barely survived an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993.
As the whole world watch closely with keen interest the unfolding of
events in the controversies surrounding The Satanic Verses, it is really
hoped that the concept of Satanism will not possibly overshadow and
swallow Rushdie and his contemporaries.
Scholars of postmodernism have generally observed that lots of
questions deserve to be asked about postmodernism. The politics
behind postmodernism and the proper definition of the term are
parts of problems associated with postmodernism. In the words of
How, "for postmodernists the world is a contingent place for which
there is no general explanation. It is made up of a multiplicity of free
- floating signs of which the sign of the 'subject' is but one and one
that is no more real than any other." (149)
Although the term "Postmodernism" is continually undergoing
interpretation and redefinition, one constant thing that emerges from
the critical discourses surrounding it is a sense that postmodernism
involves a radical re-thinking of representational strategies, and with
this, a question of our underlying assumptions about how
"meanings” are produced. Postmodern narratives are therefore
frequently
experimental,
employing
such
techniques
as
fragmentation, intertextuality, and appropriation to fundamentally
alter the way language represents the "meaning'" of texts. Other
postmodern narratives are preoccupied with the intersection of the
"past" and contemporaneity, continually asking what's at stake when
representations of previous cultural history are put to work in
various ways as a comment on the present. Also associated with
postmodernism are recent developments in philosophy and critical
theory which have thoroughly dismantled the idea of a cohesive
45
subject, leaving open the question of the very location of meaning,
along with the possibility of its existence.
(`clas, Virginia, edu. cfrur/crap. html).
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Appignanesi, Richard and Garrat, Chris. Introducing Postmodernism.
New York: Totem Books, 1995.
Bishop, Ryan. Postmodernism. In Davidlevinson and Melvin Ember
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D'Andrade, Roy. Moral Models in Anthropology. In Current
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Erickson, John D. Islam and Postcolonial Narrative.
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How, Alan. Critical Theory. Houndmills: Macmillan, 2003.
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Klages, Mary. Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed.
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Oji, Geoffrey (Revd). Postmodernism: Seeing Through Cultures.
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Rushdie, Salmon. The Satanic Verses, a novel. United Kingdom:
Viking Press, 1988.
Sarup, Madan. An Introduction Guide to Post-Structuralism and
Postmodernism. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1993.
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Weiss, Shanon and Wesley, Karla. Postmodernlsm and Its Critics.
mdmurphy @ tendhoor. as ua.edu.
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Zeeshan Hasan. The Daily New Age. Bangladesh, November 2, 2003
issue.
The Author
Dr. Mbanefo S. Ogene graduated from Ambrose Alli University,
Ekpoma with B.A. English. He had his M.A. and Ph.D. from Nnamdi
Azikiwe University, Awka, where he is currently a lecturer in the
Department of English Language and Literature. He rose to the rank
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of a Senior Editor in Anambra Broadcasting Service, Awka where he
served respectively as a Journalist and Public Relations Officer before
transferring to the University. His areas of interest are: African
Literature, Literary Appreciation, Creative Writing and Theory and
Practice of Literary Criticism. He is a Member of the Literary Society
of Nigeria and Pelman Institute, London and specializes in poetry
composition.
Postmodernism / Literature & Ideas.
49