Post-Modernism

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Post-Modernism
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• Language is unstable and ambiguous, and is
  therefore inherently contradictory.
• S. Barnet

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What is Post-modernism?

• Post-modernism is a theory of knowledge.
• It embodies a belief that there are no certain
  single truths about the world.
• Instead, every question has an infinite number of
  answers, each being equally as valid as the
  others.

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3 main concepts of PM

• Contradictory ideas all true at once
• PM texts do this on purpose.
• Brain developmentperfect age for PM. Kids
  wouldnt get ittoo black/white.
• Plays with time, assumptions
• Riddle about surgeons son
• Self-referential. Metafictionfiction about
  fiction. How to tell a true war story.

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Common characteristics of Post-modernist texts

• Fragmented or chaotic timeline (not in
  chronological order)
• Have questionable narrators (can we trust
  him/her?)
• Paradoxical. Grey areanothing for certain,
  everything true at once
• Metafiction (fiction referring to itself as
  fictionwriting a book about someone writing this
  book)

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Common topics of Post-modernist literature

• Alienation of the individual
• Chance or coincidence (opposite of everything
  happens for a reason)
• Futility of solving the chaos or restoring
  ordercharacters may instead just play within
  the chaos. Chaos and unpredictability are not
  seen as problems to be solved, no social order to
  restore.

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Know any post-modernist movies or books?

• Matrix
• Memento
• Pulp Fiction
• Fight Club
• Clockwork Orange
• Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
• Metamorphosis (Kafka)

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Deconstruction

• A post-modernist literary lens (like feminist,
  Marxist, New-Critical)
• seeks to show that a literary work is usually
  self-contradictory. Appleman
• Can do this to any text, not just a
  post-modernist text

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Deconstruction shows that

• Text unravels into contradictions (Huck Finn).
• Text reveals more than author intended.
• Texts dont mean only one thing, even if author
  intended it to.
• Can support multiple, contradictory readings.
  All are true at same time.