Modern Literature And Modernism

Postmodern themes have been creeping into Young Adult Literature for decades, testing the water to see if this genre could host its disruptive behaviors and outlandish ideas. S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel, The Outsiders, plays with tenets of Postmodern fiction but does not fully submerse itself in the chaos of the theory. Hinton’s book toes the line between a traditional linear text and that of a full-on Postmodern novel, such as W.D. Myers’s turn of the century publication Monster. Evidenced by scholarly studies of the novel’s tropes and themes, Monster embodies YAL’s embrace of Postmodernism and fits snugly within the generally agreed upon characteristics of the theory both in form and content. More recent and less critically studied, John Green’s The Fault in

The literary modernism time period was a movement in literature that started in the early 1890s and was very eventful. During this era there were many considerable events taking place such as The Great War (also known as “World War One”), which started in 1914. This War lasted for four years and finally ended in 1918, but its effects lasted much longer. The financial instability of Europe and death caused by this First World War gave people a sense of patriotism that unified them. It made people think of not only the society as a whole, but themselves as individuals ("Modernism."). This new individualist mindset made people think more about their thoughts and actions than they had ever previously done before. Because individuals thought

The Norton Anthology of American Literature defines and explains American Modernism through a historical lens and further emphasizes the significant social changes of the era. The American Modernist era is situated between two world wars and a devastating economic depression. The anthology describes these impactful events as a catalyst for social, political, technological, and philosophical change. America lost a sense of identity and entered into a quest to find meaning in all aspects of life.

Thomas Pynchon was born on May 8, 1937. He studied engineering physics and English at Cornell University before taking a job as an engineering aide with the aircraft manufacturer Boeing in 1960. The Crying of Lot 49, his second novel, was published in 1966 amid America’s counterculture movement. The novel’s protagonist, Oedipa, attempts to reinstall some sense of order to her life and to the increasingly disordered American mainstream by doggedly pursuing a conspiracy. Her efforts ultimately prove futile, as America, and by extension the universe, continues to careen towards its fate—a state of complete chaos.

The sixties was an era of radical change. With the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War, the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, plus the success of the moon landing, people all around the world and especially in the United States were beginning to see a change in the world itself and the minds of the people in it. The sudden ability to receive messages from across oceans and the ability to travel internationally much safer and quicker also changed the way people looked at themselves and their fellow neighbors. The Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol. F explains this:

World War I was the culmination of many things. On the surface, it was the ultimate in international disputes. Never before had the nations of the civilized world boiled over on such an enormous level. So large was the scale of World War I that there were few countries who did not feel its effects.

Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. This chronology is natural, and usually, guides the telling of said stories. However, when an author decides to abandon this chronological sequence of events, it is usually either to set up a significant flashback or to emphasize the importance of a certain event or order of events. This disregard for the traditional, chronological sequence of telling a story is seen in George Orwell’s, dystopian novel, 1984, as well as Joyce Moss and George Wilson’s journal article, “Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them.”

"Answering the question: what is the postmodern?” by Jean-François Lyotard defines postmodernism as the death of the metanarrative, the explanations created for society for everything that happens. Metanarriatives are built to make sense out of

The Twentieth Century found literature with a considerably different attitude and frame-of-mind than had the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Two hundred years is, of course, a long time to allow change within genres, but after the fairly gradual progression of the novel as a form, its change in the hands of modernism happened rapidly in comparison. Explaining how texts within the framework of modernist writing are “different” require laying out from what they are different, how, and why. A direct cause of, and coinciding with, literature’s abruptly changing face was the Industrial Revolution and its subsequent

Modernism is typified by rejection of tradition. Modernism is a present-state undertaking that comes with subsequent changes brought by innovation and change of approaches in production and thought. Traditions as the past lifestyle and activity cannot be at the stand with new and modern approaches of relaying similar activities and solutions. The challenges brought by the environment have changed urgency of approach and perception of ideas in the world. Change of ideas and approaches touch on every sector of human and animal life in the world. For instance, modernism is characterized by abandonment of the old and outdated approaches of activity and embracing new ideas backed by innovation and modern thought. Therefore, modernism is a gradual adoption of the new ideas and approaches of solving the immediate and long-time problems while rejecting the old traditional ways (Harrison & Wood, 2003).

Modernism was a movement in literature, art, and music that began with the thought that everything there was to be written had already been written. Modernist writers believed that in order to create new works, they needed to create a completely new genre, using new styles of writing. These writers wanted to differentiate themselves from past literary movements, especially those of the Victorian era, dated roughly from 1837 to 1901 (Kirschen). Although Modernism was a collective movement, Modernists came from all different walks of life. Modernists also come together on one important issue, the push to form something new. They felt that in the new time of industrialism, old ideas of traditionalism were becoming quickly outdated. Modernists, in literature at least, were people who wanted to create a new relationship between reader and author. Generally, though, Modernists aimed to create a new form of expression.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, literature changed and focused on breaking away from the typical and predicate patterns of normal literature. Poets at this time took full advantage and stretched the idea of the mind’s conscience on how the world, mind, and language interact and contradict. Many authors, such as Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Twain, used the pain and anguish in first hand experiences to create and depict a new type of literature, modernism. In this time era, literature and art became a larger part of society and impacted more American lives than ever before. During the American modernism period of literature, authors, artists, and poets strived to create pieces of literature and art that

Firstly, while investigating it practicality, postmodernism revisits the belief in objective reality. It cuts with the consistent oneness and uniformity of Truth/Reality which is stripped of its hierarchical stance, giving much leeway for the proliferation of multiples realities and the plurality of new stories, new texts and new fictional worlds constructed by the characters. These nascent narratives uncover the laden discourse behind the creation of history which is constructed on the exclusion of the peripherized and inclusion of the dominant for the sake of homogeneity. Postmodernism thus, while interrogating the tenability of objectivity, divulges the unreliability of authentic representations. Accordingly, as the centre no longer holds, Reality is relativized Truth is

Literature is an art and a tool that is often used to make an argument about the human condition. Older pieces of literature may seem outdated and obsolete because times have changed. This may be true, but human nature does not change which makes the messages of any piece of writing relevant. The struggle against fate has been a theme in literature and storytelling for millenniums, from the Greek myths with their tragic heroes to 1984 and Nectar in a Sieve. The struggle is usually for survival, which means to continue to exist in this world either physically, in the memories of people, or through a legacy. For instance, Abraham Lincoln continues to survive through his recorded speeches and the social changes he made during his presidency. In Lincoln’s example, the enslaved people he freed were born into a system (which was political and social, based on law and culture) of slavery which was designed to hinder their progress. In this case, a system is the factors one has no control over that are usually an obstacle to survival. Kamala Markandaya and George Orwell convey that despite the different factors in life that are designed to make one fail, one must struggle against the system in order to survive.

Postmodernism has a great impact to the western ideology and thoughts. It is a challenge to all human disciplines, which are often considered to be a search for ultimate truth. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether postmodernism is a leap forward or back in epistemology and ideology. In order to do that, evaluation on how postmodernism has challenged the mainstream reality and the contradictions postmodernism embodies will be discussed. Postmodernism is an ambiguous term to define. In the context of this paper, postmodernism is understood as in the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Michel Foucault. It should be clarified that postmodernism is a broader area than that covered in the works of the above two writers.