POSTMODERNISM AND THE
INDIVIDUAL
Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme and Paola Capriolo
LECTURE OUTLINE
individuality in society
 Narration
and individuality
 Language
 The
and communication
shape of the story
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
 The
POSTMODERNISM –
CONTEXTUAL TIMELINE
Outbreak of WWII
1945
Liberation of Belsen concentration camp
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
1947
The Truman Doctrine (Start of the Cold War)
1950
Start of the Korean War
1961
1962
Kurt Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron
Cuban missile crisis
1965
Start of the ground war in Vietnam
1968
Donald Barthelme, “Indian Uprising”
1972
USSR equals US nuclear capacity
1979
Soviet War in Afghanistan
1985
Introduction of Glasnost
1988
1989
Paola Capriolo, “Il gigante”
Fall of the Berlin Wall
1991
Dissolution of the USSR
Copyright R.Sibley, University of Warwick,
2014
1939
Paolo Capriolo b.1962
Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007
Donald Barthelme 1931-1989
THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY
 What
 Postmodernism
focuses on alienation and
isolation but how does it represent a wider
society?
 What
are the limits on the individual’s freedom
within a postmodern society?
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
is the role of the individual in a
postmodern society?
THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY - VONNEGUT
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
The year was 2081, and everyone was finally
equal. They weren’t only equal before God
and the law. They were equal every which
way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else.
Nobody was better looking than anybody
else. All this equality was due to the 211th,
212th and 213th Amendments to the
Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of
agents of the United States Handicapper
General.
Dresden after the Allied bombing of 1945
THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY - CAPRIOLO
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
Ho osservato il volto immobile, l’esile figura
che si disegnava sotto le coltri, le dita sottili,
lievemente contratte, sul cui pallore risaltava il
cerchio d’oro della fede nuziale, e mi sono
chiesto chi fosse quella donna che per sette
anni era vissuta al mio fianco. All’improvviso
mi appariva estranea, quasi che la morte
avesse illuminato di una luce cruda la
solitudine in cui siamo tutti confinati.
NARRATION AND INDIVIDUALITY - CAPRIOLO
Using a diary format allows for subjectivity but also
makes us question it.

Capriolo deliberately leaving gaps – interesting it’s
not narrated from Adele’s POV.

Confessional tone to the narrative – the narrator is
revealing thoughts he doesn’t speak about.

Strange disjunction between the lyrical mode of
expression and his job, ie. prison warden.
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012

NARRATIVE AND INDIVIDUALITY - BARTHELME
I analyzed the composition of the barricade
nearest me and found two ashtrays,
brown with an orange blur at the lip; a tin
frying pan; two-liter bottles of red wine;
three-quarter-liter bottles of Black & White,
aquavit, cognac, vodka, gin, Fad #6 sherry;
a hollow-core door in birch veneer on black
wrought-iron legs; a blanket, red-orange
with faint blue stripes; a red pillow and a
blue pillow; a woven straw wastebasket; two
glass jars for flowers; corkscrews and can
openers; two plates and two cups, ceramic,
dark brown; a yellow-and-purple poster; a
Yugoslavian carved flute, wood, dark brown,
and other items. I decided I knew nothing.
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
ceramic, one dark brown and one dark
BARTHELME ON THE NARRATIVE COLLAGE
“The point of collage is that things are stuck together to
create a new reality.”

''The principle of collage is the central principle of all art
in the 20th century: 'Dealing With Not-Knowing’.”

“Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, rather
because it wishes to be art. However much the writer
might long to straightforward, these virtues are no longer
available to him. He discovers that in being simple,
honest, straightforward, nothing much happens.”
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012

Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
Peter Blake and Jann Haworth
COLLAGE AND ART
POP ART AND “LOW” CULTURE
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1963
LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
 Both
 Barthelme
concentrates on physical objects
in attempt to find meaning.
are questioning the limits of language –
what do we miss when we read or speak?
 All
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012
Vonnegut and Capriolo focus on nonverbal forms of communication – dancing
and music.
THE SHAPE OF THE POSTMODERN STORY
Vonnegut taught creative writing at US universities –
very simple approach to narrative.

Often lectured on how to write fiction for publication, for
example here.

What does this approach tell us about the role of the
short story in postmodern society?

Do the other postmodern stories fit this idea of the
simple narrative?
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012

CONCLUSIONS
Postmodernism is capable of tremendous variety in
form, narrative approach and characterisation.

It focuses on uneasy sense that society is not what
we believe it to be.

It questions the nature of individuality – is
conformity desirable or even attainable?

Postmodern short fiction collects elements of
previous movements – plays with genre and reader
expectations.
Rochelle Sibley, Department of English,
University of Warwick 2012

SEMINAR QUESTIONS
Is the individual represented differently in
postmodern stories compared to in realist and
modernist texts?

Are these stories more difficult for the reader to
engage with than the other stories we’ve read this
term?
R.Sibley, University of Warwick, 2012
