Postmodernism And The Future Of Literature

Dana GIoia uses factual evidence and strong reasoning to develop his view of the literature crisis into a persuasive article.

“Waiting on the World to Change” by John Mayer If everyone always expects someone else to change the world, then who will ever make the first move to start fighting for the things they believe in? John Mayer presents this issue in his song, “Waiting on the World to Change” and provides evidence of his opposition to war, deception, and other worldly issues. However, these are not what he is protesting for in this song, rather he is making light of his generation’s lack of advocacy and action for issues that they want to change. Mayer speaks for himself and his generation specifically, but this same issue is present amongst all generations young and old.

The post modern literary period started after World War II, it is characterized by the reliance on narrative techniques such as paradox, unreliable narrator, pigmentation, etc.

Freedom is one of the pillars on which modern society is built upon. Our freedom, though it may give sadness, also gives purpose and quoting Walter Wangerin Junior: “The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow”. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World demonstrates a society deprived of its freedom through societal conditioning. The first instance of conditioning is the consumerist ideology and this ideology causes the loss of high arts and culture. The second instance of conditioning is found within the forced dependence of recreational drugs, causing the population to constantly pursue a shallow and temporary happiness. The third instance of conditioning is found within the caste system and prevents any individuality

It was during the period of “modernity” which stems back to the 18th century, that notions of tradition, feudalism and superstition began to be replaced by reasoning, science and exploration. There was a move away from harsh penal conditions and a move towards reforming individuals. It was during this period of modernity that there existed societal consensus and a general air of optimism which generated high levels of trust and respect for people in authority. During the mid-1980s post-modernism emerged as an area of academic study, and it is this which currently describes today’s developed world.

Both Modernism and Modernismo were movements around the turn of the 20th century which caused cultural upheaval and renovation in times where the society was, or needed to be, changing. Modernism took place throughout Europe and in the United States, while Modernismo was a Latin American movement. The two movements share several general characteristics, but were, without a doubt, two separate and distinct movements, and should not be confused. Therefore, it is useful to clarify the causes, characteristics, and effects of each movement, comparing their similarities and contrasting their differences.

    Postmodernism is a form of literature which is marked both stylistically and ideologically, by a reliance on such literary conventions as unreliable narrators , parody, unrealistic plots, dark humor and authorial self-reference.  A Girl’s Story written by David Arnason is a perfect example of postmodernism because David tends to ignore the traditional limitation of structure. He uses the power of his mind to develop his story (A Girl’s Story). David uses the cultures and classes to create a limitation free story that anyone can enjoy and understand.

            While Marxist critics must admit that they themselves are helpless to avoid the effects of hegemony, the critical project of Marxist literary criticism remains steadfastly committed to the attempt to identify and understand the mediating contexts in which the forces of hegemony exert pressure on a text, its author, and its audience. These contexts manifest themselves within specific historical, economic, political, cultural, etc... conditions. In order to discover such contexts, a work of art cannot be uprooted from the specific temporal circumstances in which it is read or created and regarded as an isolated purely original entity. Literature, for better or worse, is mired in history.

To fully appreciate the differences and similarities between Postmodernism and Modernism, it is required to understand exactly what they are. Modernism is the term we give to the accumulated creations and activities of designers in the early 20th century, who had the theory that traditional forms of literature, religion, social organization, and most of all, art and architecture, had become outdated in the new social, political, and economic environment of a fully industrialised world. One of the main characteristics of Modernism is self-consciousness, which typically caused exstensive experimentations of form and function. The creative process of generating work was also explored, forming new techniques in design. Modernism rejected all ideology of realism and prefers to reference and parody works of the past. Postmodernism, on the other hand, is a radical rejection of Modernist design. Taking place in the late 20th century, it is a movement in art, criticism, and architecture that disputes the majority of modernist tendencies. The Postmodernist analysis of society and culture lead to the expansion of critical theory and advanced the works of architecture, literature, and design. This entire re-evaluation of the western value system of popular culture, love, marriage, economy, that took place from the 1950s and 60s, leading to the peak of the Social Revolution in 1968, is commonly referred as Postmodernity which influenced postmodern thought, as opposed to the term

The mistrust of the world which is at the center of modernism can be attributed to the world wars and the psychological effect that it had on the individual. The horrors and violence altered public perceptions of life, a change that is evident within writers of the time period. The focus of writing shifted from the outward world to inner thoughts and feelings and overall representation of an individual’s stream of consciousness which are themes associated with modern text. In “Impact of Modernism”, focuses on the idea that world needed new outlets for expression and in finding them rejected the tradition that was already there with the quote, “Many modernists believed that by rejecting tradition they could discover radically new ways of making art.” (Impact) .The world no longer had the beauty it once did so a a discovery of new arts were needed. The mind of an individual became that new found inspiration and beauty that modern writers needed and for that reason it was one of the main focuses of modern

Literature: the enlightenment, romanticism, realism, modernism, and postmodernism…. Where does one begin? To some, those words can be as scary as the word computer is to others. This essay is designed to help you become a great literary interpreter. Getting the motivation is three fourths of the battle to getting into the heads of the artists. To begin, an outline of some of the literary movements has been provided.

In today’s 21st century of life, there are millions and millions of books, short stories, and poems. Authors have been scripting out different tales since before the 1st century. Therefore giving one plenty of options when it comes to not only reading, but analyzing, evaluating, and even interpreting the literature standpoint that you receive from picking up a good book. The three themes from the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, written by Thomas C. Foster, can be applied to pieces of literature such as Frank Stockton’s “The Lady or the Tiger?”, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, and “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Several themes in How to Read Literature Like a Professor like “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires,” “Now Where Have I Seen Her Before?,” and “Is That a Symbol?” play into the famous short stories mentioned above. “The Acts of Vampires” is a theme that deals with “The Lady, or the Tiger?” and how the corrupt older male strips away the females virtues and youth. “Now Where Have I Seen Her Before?” deals with the short story “The Lottery” and how every story comes from another story, and nothing is original because it is always a spin off of another book. Lastly, “Is That a Symbol?” deals with “The Minister’s Black Veil” and how symbolic the minister’s black veil really is.

According to David Lodge realistic literature is based on “ their obsession with form to neglect the content and the third person omniscient mode is more often used to assert or imply the existence of society or history, than of heaven and hell. Therefore, modernist fiction eschews the straight chronological ordering of realistic material and the use of reliable omniscient intrusive narrator”. In her novel, Jeanette Winterson uses a “method of multiple points of view” and her novel “tends towards a fluid and complex handling of time, involving much cross-reference backwards and forwards across the chronological span of the action”. We can reinforce this idea by quoting Linda Hutcheon, who says: “the postmodern artist was no longer the

The continuing emergence of innovative writing technologies allows people to express themselves and communicate in countless different ways from years past. With these new technologies comes a change in many of our learning and social traditions. The most important change is the metamorphosis taking place in the online literary world. The line between author and reader has become blurred as more and more technology-driven literature, like hypertext fiction, has become interactive. The whole idea of authorship has changed, which in turn affects the role of the reader.

The concept of modernism according to Schwartz “has been altered significantly by the emergence of postmodernism as an axial notion in our cultural vocabulary”(250). Modernism was set in movement, in one sense, through a series of cultural shocks and unexpected breaks which experimentation and individualism became virtues. According to Badick “Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader”. The poetry of the 19th century includes nostalgia for and old world, exotic places, fantasy elements like a fairy. American artists felt like they had to go to Europe to the cultural capitals like Paris and London. Writers and artists were struggling to find new