Postmodernism's The Swan As A Metaphor For Love

    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.

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

Modernism was primarily concerned with principles such as identity, unity, authority, and certainty whereas postmodernism is often connected with difference, plurality, textuality, and skepticism. Postmodernism is a movement away from the perspective of modernism. Basically Modernism became 'whatever you could get away with.' Modernism attempts to construct a consistent world-view whereas postmodernism tries to remove the difference between high and low. Modernist thinking stresses that mankind advances by using science and reason while postmodernist thinking believes that progress is the only way to validate the European domination on culture. Modernist beliefs are in learning from past experiences and trusts the texts that relate the past. On the other hand postmodernist thinking defies any truth in the text narrating the past and renders it of no use in the present times. Modernist historians have a faith in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it. This is not the case with postmodernist thinkers. They believe in going by the superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show no concern towards the depth of subjects. Modernism considers the original works as authentic while postmodernist thinkers base their views on hyper-reality; they get highly influenced by things propagated through

Love can be whatever one makes it out to be. From basic science to a complex philosophical or mystical idea. A person’s own unique experiences with love make it a concept that is so widely perceived and interpreted. Throughout her piece, Selections from Love 2.0 Barbara Fredrickson tries to broaden her audience’s understanding to a new idea of love. Overall, she claims that love is a biological need. The claim that longevity and quality of life might have lots to do with not only ‘clean air and nutritious food’ but also ‘your supply of love’ are accurate to a certain extent. A constant supply of love is needed for a better quality of life but it is not necessarily needed to live a long life. If the claim is taken to be true, then a weak supply of love would result in a person just existing and not living life to their fullest or connecting to other human beings; therefore, they would be incomplete without it.

Poets have written love poems for centuries with the first said to be around 1000BC. But what is love? It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘ to have attachment to and affection for’. However, after studying various love poems, I have found that love is portrayed in many different ways. It can be possessive, hateful and pure and the fact that William Shakespeare said ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ suggests that love is more complicated than a simple dictionary definition.

Laura Kipnis’s “Against Love”, and Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” ,brings up the issue of what is the definition of love and is love what we think it is. Love has changed in comparison to what it once was, and we now loosely use the term, but what does it truly mean, and why do we buy in to it. Kipnis’s essay develops the idea that this “mature love” is when someone can love and be loved, and she takes the position that this does not happen. Although Kipnis believes mature love is neither a realistic expectation nor a good thing to have, I claim that the idea of mature love is not bogus, because even though it is rare to find, and may even take a few tries, I believe it is possible for people to have this mature love. Unlike Kipnis too, I believe mature love can take on different forms, and doesn’t have to just be so black and white like Kipnis explains it as.

The term postmodernism is used a lot with the analysis of characters of The Nonexistent Knight and the story. Postmodernism is the acceptance that the world lacks true creativity, that reality is fragmented, and the belief that all communication is shaped by cultural bias, myth, metaphor, and political content. So basically, it is the realization of the world being biased and lack of true creativity. An example of this would be Gurduloo and how he is the opposite of what society wants him to be. He is seen as a postmodernist character due to his opposite reactions to what society has taught us to follow and be. A real life example of this is that humans aren’t creators in the eyes of Christians, only God can create. Humans can be influenced

The postmodern quality is Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” is feelings of anxiety, confusion, and uncertainty. The narrator says, “Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though.” (Vonnegut 459) This quotation shows that even in a society where everybody is made out to be equal; something is still off and confusing for the people. Another quote from “Harrison Bergeron” that represents

Postmodernism is a term that lacks a definitive definition. According to Fabe, postmodernism has become meaningless, which is ironically appropriate because one of the core concerns of postmodernism is meaningless (173). Mast and Kawin note that “postmodernism analyzes a world without a definitive center,” and builds on references to popular culture (630). In class, we discussed that postmodernism comments on contemporary culture, often through quotation, appropriation, borrowing, homage, reusing, and recycling. After watching the two postmodern films, Annie Hall and How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman, I think postmodernism fits into all of these definitions. I also think postmodern films offer a sort of truth that is often unrecognizable

One may have feelings for another; it is natural. When faced with rejection, however, the result is ruinous. In the poem, “Love Song, with Two Goldfish”, a goldfish was infatuated with another fish. However, the former was rejected because he “could not give a life beyond the bowl.” She rejected him because of the rash promises he had made, something that made the latter miserable. He expected joy, but was met with pain. Intolerance is common among relationships as most don’t see them as a pleasure, but more of a detriment. In the poem, “What Love Isn’t”, Ward reflects on her experience with love and how much it irritated her. She says, “it is weight and it is too heavy to feel good sometimes. It is discomfort.” Instead of the passion and happiness one experiences in a relationship, Ward had none of it and only went through pain. The pressure of such a romance gave her unneeded agony. While love is depicted as a passionate and beautiful experience, it is a painful one filled with rejection and

Throughout history, the media has shown many different sides of love. Weather it be peaceful, violent, dangerous, beautiful, almost all forms of the media have shown love in some way. In the novel The Great Gatsby, love is shown between many different characters in different ways. The reader experiences love at its best and worst. We see relationships flourish, rekindle and end between the different characters. The most controversial relationship is the relationship between Daisy and Tom. Through infidelity, and mistrust, tragedy occurs. Other characters become associated with their marital problems, showing different kinds of love and relationships. In the play Hamlet, the reader also experiences many different kinds of love, ranging from

While people are often able to identify when they feel the emotion love, love itself seems to defy definition.  In her polemic “Against Love”, Laura Kipnis argues that love cannot exist as traditional expressions of love such as marriage, monogamy, and mutuality.  However, in her argument, she defines love incorrectly by equating love to expressions of love. This definition lacks a component essential to understanding the abstract concept of love: emotion. Recognizing love as emotion helps us realize that, contrary to Kipnis’ argument love by nature transcends all expressions of love. Love is subjective and exists in any and all forms. In her argument that love cannot survive as conventional expressions of love, Kipnis ignores the nature of love as emotion in favor of equating love to different expressions of love. Love is a force which exists above expressions of love; a true understanding of love can only come from an assessment of how individuals, not societies, respond to the emotion.

The modern concept of love owes a great deal to the Humanist tradition of the Renaissance. The humanists focused on perfection and exaltation of this life as opposed to the afterlife. In Tristan and Iseult the seeds of Renaissance love are present in the Middle Ages. To the modern eye, it is a mystery how the period of the Middle Ages produced the seeds of the diametrically opposite Renaissance. Yet it is necessary to understand this transformation if one is to fully comprehend the forces that helped produce the modern consciousness. Courtly Love is a transitional concept that emerged in the Middle Ages. It is transitional because it emerged early and acknowledges God as the creator of love,

Their belief is if something happen to you it because you made it happen. Postmodernist deem that truth is relative and truth is up to each human being to decide for himself. They view the world outside of themselves as being wrong, other people’s truth becomes indistinguishable from wrong. While is everyone have they own concept of just what postmodernism believe it seem to have become very popular anything and everything is okay and no one can give a clear answer on just what their worldview is it just seem a little complicated for illogical think, immorality as well as transitory

Postmodernism refers to a broad term used to explain movements in philosophy, art, music and critical theory. Postmodernism is viewed as a reaction to the pioneering modernist movement. In literature and art, postmodernism responds against classical ideas. With respect to post-structuralism and structuralism, there is a great difference between postmodernism