Postmodernism

1. Postmodernism Authors and Literature

2. What is Postmodernism? • Originally a reaction to modernism, referring to the lack of artistic, intellectual, or cultural thought or organized principle. • Started around 1940s, exact date is unknown. • Peaked around the 1960s and 1970s with the release of “Catch 22” by Joseph Heller (It uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so that the timeline develops along with the plot). and “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut (it speaks bout the fire-bombing of Dresden in World War II, and refers to the Battle of the Bulge, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights protests in American cities during the 1960s. Billy's wife, Valencia, wears a Reagan for President! bumper sticker on her car, referring to Reagan's failed 1968 Republican presidential nomination campaign.)(Source: Wikipedia)

3. Postmodern Literature • What is it? - Used to describe the different aspects of post WW2 literature (modernist literature). - There is not a clear and defined definition of postmodernism because of the little agreement of the concepts and characteristics and ideas within postmodernism.

4. Postmodernist Literature • Postmodernist Literature contains a broad range of concepts and ideas that include: - responses to modernism and its ideas - responses to technological advances - greater diversity of cultures that leads to cultural pluralism. (small groups within a larger society maintain their culture identity) (sexual, racial minorities, abolition of slavery) . - reconceptualizations of society and history.

5. Postmodern Literature • There are a few similarities to modernist literature. • Like modernist literature, both are usually told from an objective or omniscient point of view. • Both literatures explore the external reality to examine the inner states of consciousness of the characters. • Both employ fragmentation in narrative and character construction.

6. Postmodern Literature: Common Themes • Irony, playfulness, black humor, fiction, social criticism.

7. Postmodern Literature:Literary devices Pastiche • Pastiche is a literary piece that imitates another famous literary work of another writer. Unlike parody, its purpose is not to mock but to honor the literary piece it imitates. • This literary device is generally employed to imitate a piece of literary work light-heartedly but in a respectful manner. The term pastiche also applies to a literary work that is a wide mixture of items such as themes, concepts and characters imitated from different literary works. For instance, many of the pastiche examples are in the form of detective novels that are written in fashion of the original stories of “Sherlock Holmes”. It features either “Sherlock Holmes” or a main character like him.

8. Postmodern Literature:Common Themes • Metafiction - Writing about writing, often used to undermine the authority of the author and to advance stories in unique ways. Example: In Italo Calvino’s novel, If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler, is about a reader attempting to read a novel of the same name. In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, the first chapter is about the writing process of the novel. (See “Continuity of Parks by Julio Cortázar)

9. Postmodern Literature:Common Themes • Paranoia -The belief that there is something out of the ordinary, while everything remains the same. (The Catcher in the Rye) Example: In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Breakfast of Champions, a character becomes violent when he imagines everyone else as a robot and he is the only human.

10. References • Adapted from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/troc0020/classes/Postmodern%20Presentation.ppt