Postmodernism and Deconstructionism

1
Postmodernism and Deconstructionism
2
Super Frog Saves Tokyo

• Postmodernism and Deconstructionism reviewed

3
Postmodernism Review

• post-modernism associated with
• World War II
• took the splintered views of modernism and
  destroyed them entirely,
• stresses absences, contradictions, sub-texts, and
  inability of language

4
WWPD (What would postmodernists do?)

• Discover postmodern themes, tendencies and
  attitudes in literature
• Foreground disappearance of the real, for
  example, in the mixing of genres
• Foreground intertextual elements such as
  parody, pastiche, and allusion
• Foreground irony
• Foreground narcissism of narrative, when
  narratives focus on their own construction
• Challenge distinction between high and low
  culture

5
Deconstructionism Review

• centers around the belief that much of
  contemporary society and definitions are a
  product of cultural construction.
• literature should deconstruct back to its
  basis. 
• critiques everything found in the overt text, and
  questions the ability of language to reflect with
  any accuracy what an author might be trying to
  say. 
• novels are puzzles to be decoded. 

6
WWDD (What would deconstructionsits do?)

• Read text against itself to expose the
  underlying assumptions
• Fix upon the surface features of
  words---similarities in sound, root meanings,
  etc. so these become crucial to overall meaning
• Seek to reveal disunity of text
• Analyze individual passages so intensely that
  language explodes into multiplicities of
  meaning
• Look for shifts or breaks in the text as
  evidence of what is glossed over or silenced by
  the text. These discontinuities are known as
  fault lines

7
For final essay

• Be sure to apply one of the literary lenses to
  Poisonwood Bible