Postmodernism &
Postmodernist Literature
English 11
What is “Postmodernism”?
Postmodernism: Definition
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Coined in 1949
To describe a dissatisfaction with
modern architecture, founding the
postmodern architecture
Any of several movements (as in art,
architecture, or literature) reacting
against the philosophy and
practices of modern movements
Postmodernist Literature:
Overview
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After World War II
A series of reactions against the
perceived failure
Reaction against modernism
Postmodernist Literature:
Overview
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Important Works:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
 Lost in the Funhouse by John
Barth (1968)
 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt
Vonnegut (1969)
 Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas
Pynchon (1973)
 Catcher in the Rye by J.D.
Salinger
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First, what is “modern”? Depends on Discipline.
The break away from 19th-century
values is often classified as
modernism, and carries the connotation
of transgression and rebellion.
However, the last twenty years has seen
a change in this attitude towards focusin
upon a series of unresolvable
philosophical and social debates, such a
race, gender and class.
Rather than challenging and destroying
cultural definitions, as does modernism,
post-modernism resists the very idea of
boundaries. It regards distinctions as
undesirable and even impossible, so tha
an almost Utopian world, free from all
constraints, becomes possible.
Modernism Vs
Postmodernism
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A break from 19th century realism
A story was told from an objective or
omniscient point of view
Character development:
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Both literature explore subjectivism
Turning from external reality to examine
inner states of consciousness
Drawing on modernist examples in the
stream of consciousness styles of
Virginia Woolf and James Joyce
Modernism Vs
Postmodernism: Poems (Not
limited to poems)
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The Waste Land by T S Eliot
Fragmentary
 Employing pastiche like much
postmodern literature
 Speaker in The Waste Land:
"these fragments I have shored
against my ruins"
 Modernist literature: fragmentation
and extreme subjectivity as an
existential crisis, or Freudian
internal conflict
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Modernism Vs
Postmodernism
A problem that must be solved,
and the artist often cited as the
one to solve it
 Postmodernists: this chaos is
insurmountable; the artist is
impotent, and the only recourse
against "ruin" is to play within the
chaos.
 Playfulness becomes central and
the actual achievement of order
and meaning becomes unlikely
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Modernism Vs
Postmodernism
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Explore fragmentariness in narrativeand character-construction
Characterized by allusive difficulty,
paradox, and indifference or outright
hostility to the democratic ethos
More and more in jeopardy since the
rise of fascism and dictatorial
communism.
Modern:
Linear progress in
history
Boundaries, social
class, race and
gender
Formality, emphasis
on authoritarian
perspectives
Scientific rationality,
unified theory of
progress
Essentialism, seeking
“real” essences
Prescription
Normative
Postmodern:
“Historicity”,
historicization, sociocultural locatedness
of moments in history
Critical study of class,
race, and gender;
uses other
perspectives
Intertextuality, selfreflexivity, montage,
pastiche
Signs, image,
reproductive social
order
Local accounts
Description
“Post-modernism has many interpretations
and no single definition is adequate.
Different disciplines have participated in
the post-modernist movement in varying
ways … in architecture, traditional limits
have become indistinguishable, so that
what is commonly on the outside of a
building is placed within, and vice
versa.
In literature, writers adopt a self-conscious
intertextuality sometimes verging on
pastiche, which denies the formal
propriety of authorship and genre. In
commercial terms post-modernism may
be seen as part of the growth of
consumer capitalism into multinational
and technological identity.”
…postmodernity (involves) the end of
an overarching belief in scientific
rationality and a unitary theory of
progress, the replacement of
empiricist theories of
representation and truth, and
increased emphasis on the
importance of the unconscious, on
free-floating signs and images, and a
plurality of viewpoints … a shift from a
`productive' to a ‘reproductive’ social
order, in which simulations and
models -- and more generally, signs -increasingly constitute the world, so
that any distinction between the
appearance and the ‘real’ is lost.
“Another feature of postmodernism
seen by some theorists is that the
boundaries between `high' and
`low' culture tend to be broken
down. According to many theorists,
postmodernist cultural movements,
which often overlap with new
political tendencies and social
movements in contemporary society,
are particularly associated with the
increasing importance of new class
fractions.”
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Irony, playfulness, black humor,
hyperreality, temporal distortion,
metacognition/metafiction, paranoia
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Postmodern fiction: characterized by the
ironic quote marks,
Postmodern novelists labeled black
humorists: John Barth, Joseph Heller,
William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Bruce
Jay Friedman
Common to treat serious subjects in a
playful and humorous way
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Pastiche
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To combine, or "paste" together, multiple
elements.
An homage to or a parody of past styles
A representation of the chaotic, pluralistic, or
information-drenched aspects of postmodern
society
A combination of multiple genres to create a
unique narrative or to comment on situations in
postmodernity
William S. Burroughs: science fiction, detective
fiction, westerns
Margaret Atwood: science fiction and fairy tales
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Metafiction (metacognition)
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Writing about writing or "foregrounding
the apparatus"
Making the artificiality of art or the
fictionality of fiction apparent to the
reader
Generally disregards the necessity for
“willful suspension of disbelief”
To undermine the authority of the
author, for unexpected narrative shifts
To advance a story in a unique way, for
emotional distance
To comment on the act of storytelling
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Historiographic metafiction
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Fictionalize actual historical
events or figures
The General in His Labyrinth by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (about
Simón Bolívar)
 Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (featuring
such historical figures as Archduke
Franz Ferdinand of Austria and
Sigmund Freud)
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Common Themes &
Techniques
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Temporal distortion
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Central features: Fragmentation and
non-linear narratives
Temporal distortion for the sake of irony
Example: Historiographic metafiction
Distortions in time in Kurt Vonnegut's
non-linear novels: Billy Pilgrim in
Slaughterhouse Five coming "unstuck in
time“
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Anachronisms: Abraham Lincoln using a
telephone In his flight to Canada
(Ishmael Reed)
Time may also overlap, repeat, or
bifurcate into multiple possibilities.
"The Babysitter" from Pricksongs &
Descants by Robert Coover: multiple
possible events occurring
simultaneously -- in one section the
babysitter is murdered while in another
section nothing happens and so on
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Technoculture and hyperreality
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Fredric Jameson: “society has moved
past the industrial age and into the
information age”.
Jean Baudrillard: postmodernity was
defined by a shift into hyperreality in
which simulations have replaced the
real.
People are inundated with information
Technology as a central focus in many
lives
Common Themes &
Techniques
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Paranoia
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The belief that there is an ordering system
behind the chaos of the world
Postmodernist: no ordering system exists,
so a search for order is fruitless and absurd.
Often coincides with the theme of
technoculture and hyperreality.
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 is the
only human
~Time to go~
Thank you!