University 8 May 1945 Guelma Master 1, Group 5

American Literature Mrs. Boursace Houda

Postmodernism

What is Postmodernism?

 The period after World War II is normally considered postmodernism oriented in the sense
that there were complex developments in the economic, cultural, and social conditions
around the Globe.

 Postmodernism is a term that encompasses a wide-range of developments in philosophy,

film, architecture, art, literature, and culture.

 The prefix "post", however, does not necessarily imply a new era. Rather, it could also
indicate a reaction to modernism in the wake of the Second World War. It could also imply a
reaction to significant post-war events: the beginning of the Cold War, the civil rights
movement in the United States, postcolonialism, and the rise of the personal computer
(Cyberpunk fiction and Hypertext fiction).

Postmodern Literature :

 Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little
agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature.

 Postmodern literature 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
Modernist literature.

 However, Postmodern Literature is generally accepted that it defines the following:

- the non-realist and non-traditional literature of the post-World War Two period;

- literature which takes certain modernist characteristics to an extreme stage (this view is
expressed in John Barth's essay "The Literature of Exhaustion"; and

- to refer to a more general human condition in the "late-capitalist" world of the post
1950s, a period marked by the end of what Jean-François Lyotard calls the grand/“meta-
narratives" of western culture.

Comparison with modernist Literature:

1-Similarities with Modernist Literature:

 Both modern and postmodern literature represent a break from 19th century realism.

 In character development, both M and PM L explore subjectivism, turning from external

reality to examine inner states of consciousness, for example the stream of consciousness
styles of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, or explorative poems like The Waste Land by T. S.
Eliot.
  the rejection of the cult of originality in recognition of the inevitable loss of origin in the age
of mass production.

 both modern and postmodern literature explore fragmentariness in narrative- and

character-construction. (The technique of fragmentation)

2-Differences from Modern Literature:

 The Waste Land is often cited as a means of distinguishing modern and postmodern
literature. The poem is fragmentary and employs pastiche like much postmodern literature,
but the speaker in The Waste Land says, "these fragments I have shored against my ruins".

Modernist literature sees fragmentation and extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis, or

Freudian internal conflict, a problem that must be solved, and the artist is often cited as the
one to solve it.

Postmodernists, however, often demonstrate that this chaos is insurmountable; the artist is
impotent, and the only recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos.

 Playfulness is present in many modernist works (Joyce's Finnegans Wake or Virginia Woolf's
Orlando, for example) and they may seem very similar to postmodern works, but with
postmodernism playfulness becomes central and the actual achievement of order and
meaning becomes unlikely.

 In postmodern literature, the distinction between high and low culture tends to dissapear.

 Modernism is based on European and Western thought, while Postmodernists believe in

multiculturalism.

 Modernism was based on using rational and logical means to gain knowledge, while
Postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking by focusing on an unscientific,
irrational thought process.

 Modernist Feminism: Women are oppressed by patriarchy and can use Reason to achieve
both independence and regain their “authentic selves”.

-Postmodern Feminism: The categories male/female, masculine/feminine are themselves

culturally constructed and/or Ideology. Gender roles are culturally relative in all cultures and
contexts.

 A modernist technique of ‘collage’ is replaced by the Postmodernist technique of ‘Bricolage’

-Bricolage = is a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something new

created from a variety of old things.

So postmodernists mean by Bricolage as the use of the bits and pieces of older artifacts to
produce a new, if not original work of art; a work which blures the traditional distinctions
between the old and the new even as it blurs those between high and low art.
Key figures of Postmodernism :

 Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) , with his deconstruction theory.

 Michel Foucault (1926–1984) with his theories about knowledge and power.

 Fredric Jameson (born 1934) with his Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism (1991)

 Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) with his The Postmodern Condition.

 Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007), with his Simulacra and Simulation.

Postmodernism and Metanarrative:

 Metanarrative or grand narrative or master narrative is a term developed by Jean-François

Lyotard in his classic 1979 work The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, to
mean a theory that tries to give a totalizing, comprehensive account to various historical
events, experiences, and social, cultural phenomena based upon the appeal to
universal truth or universal values.

 Some postmodern theorists attack a form of totality they call the "master narrative." A
master narrative is any story that we tell ourselves to make sense out of all reality (or any
very large piece of it).

 Example:

-Most religious traditions are master narratives, because they include stories about the
creation and ultimate purpose of the universe.

-Evolutionary theory is a secular master narrative about life on earth.)

-Capitalism assumes a master narrative about human nature and human relationships.

Techniques in Postmodern Literature:

1-Irony, Playfulness and black humor:

 Irony: is a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended
meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. It may also be a situation that
ends up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated.

 Playfulness is central to postmodernism; it reinforces the idea that there is no organizing

principle in a chaotic world.

 Black humor: regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or

that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.

2-Intertxtuality: is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between
similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the
text.
  Julia Kristeva coined the term "intertextuality" in 1966, explaining that there are two
relationships going on whenever we read a text:

-there's the relationship between us and the author (the horizontal axis) and

-between the text and other texts (the vertical axis). It's the vertical axis that gives us our
definition of intertextuality;

- still, both axes emphasize that no text exists in a bubble and that we need to recognize how
existing works shape current texts and readings.

 The poet John Donne once wrote that "no man is an island," and for postmodernists,
no text is an island. Postmodernism is all about the connections between texts, including the
various ways in which one text references another (or many others).
 Examples of Intertextuality:
-For Whom the Bell Tolls (By Earnest Hemingway)
In the following example, Hemingway uses intertextuality for the title of his novel. He takes
the title of a poem, Meditation XVII, written by John Donne. The excerpt of this poem reads:
“No man is an island … and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.”
-William Golding, in his novel Lord of the Flies, takes the story implicitly from Treasure Island,
written by Robert Louis Stevenson. However, Golding has utilized the concept of adventures,
which young boys love to do on the isolated island they were stranded on. He, however,
changes the narrative into a cautionary tale, rejecting the glorified stories of Stevenson.
-Aime Cesaire’s play A Tempest is an adaptation of The Tempest by William Shakespeare. The
author parodies Shakespeare’s play from a post-colonial point of view. Cesaire also changes
the occupations and races of his characters.

 Pastiche: Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche means to combine, or "paste"

together, multiple elements. In Postmodernist literature this can be an homage to or a
parody of past styles. It can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative
or to comment on situations in postmodernity: for example: Margaret Atwood uses science
fiction and fairy tales and Umberto Eco uses detective fiction, fairy tales, and science fiction.

3-Metafiction: Meta means about, so metafiction is fiction that is about fiction. In other words,
fiction that thinks, and even talks, about itself. It's kind of self-conscious. Metafiction attempts to
blur the line between fiction and reality.

Example:

-if the story you're reading is about writing stories, that's metafiction.

-If the book you're reading acknowledges itself as a book, that's metafiction.

-If the author jumps into the action and says, "Look at me! I'm the author! Watch me write!" that's
metafiction.
4-Magical realism: involves inserting into a seemingly realistic setting an element of the magical;
typically, characters incorporate this magical element with little surprise.

-Postmodernists such as Salman Rushdie and Italo Calvino commonly use Magic Realism in their
work.

5-Poioumena: A specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process
of creation (sometimes the creation of the story itself)

6-Paranoia: Intense anxiety or worry, irrational distrust or suspicion of others. For the
postmodernist, no ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd.

For example, in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, the character Dwayne Hoover becomes
violent when he's convinced that everyone else in the world is a robot and he is the only human.

7-Minimalism: Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on

surface description. Minimalist authors hesitate to use adjectives, adverbs, or meaningless details.
Instead of providing every minute detail, the author provides a general context and then allows the
reader's imagination to shape the story.

The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional. Generally, the short stories
are "slice of life" stories.

8- Maximalism: highly detailed, disorganized and long writing.

9-Language creates meaning—language is seen as having power to create truth; somehow what is
said matters more than how we might usually define "reality." A postmodern approach often
emphasizes language over transcendent “truth.”

10-Self-reflexive: the idea that fiction begins to be about itself--that is, the author writes about the
process of writing (sometimes in subtle ways; sometimes very obvious).

The Death of the author:

 ”The Death of the author“ is an essay written by Ronald barthes. It abolishs the classical
literary criticism that analyses a literary work within the biographical and personal context of
the author of the work.

 The author’s intentions wouldn’t matter, even if they could be discovered. Once the work of
art is created, it becomes a product for all of us to interpret in our own way. The artist’s
interpretation of his/her own work should not necessarily take priority over anyone else
interpretations. All interpretations are by nature equally valid, at some level, since there is
no “ultimate truth” to compare interpretation by.

 This is often achieved by introducing non-linear elements to the plot and then letting the
readers make their own story out of the various elements.

Postmodern American Prominant authors :

Joseph Heller
John Barth
Kurt Vonnegut
Thomas Pynchon
Donald Barthelme
Robert Coover
John Hawkes ….
Criticisms of Postmodernism :

 One of the biggest criticisms of Postmodernism is that it is too vague.

 Since postmodernist do not believe in universal truths (metanarratives) there is an argument
that it doesn’t actually stand for anything at all.
 Another criticism of Postmodernism is that it is a pessimistic view of society and our future.
 Baudrillard and Lyotards ideas about postmodernism (hyperreality: an inability
of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality) are both pessimistic
arguments.
 Both men believed that this would lead to the breakdown of society in some way.
 Some also argue that these ideas are cynical – what is the point in producing media or art or
literature if there are no original ideas anymore?