The movement

• This latest and most modern movement started in 1945 (the end of WWII) and continues on to the present.
• Postmodernism shares qualities with Modernism, such as, the rejection of absolute truths and objective reality, but the new movement arises from the furthering of these thoughts. It believes that any issue or topic can be looked at from multiple points of view; truth, morals, and knowledge are relative and constructed by society; and they have a lack of belief in formal institutions as they are human constructions based on absolute truths and reject the plurality of options.
• It takes on and accepts popular art. Before literature was strictly elitist, only to be read by the few and so thought High Art. They thought they were selling their souls to have pop art.

Characteristics

• Postmodernism rejects narratives that try to explain humanity as a whole, and rather goes for a fragmented approach to show distinct perspectives.
• Everyday man: usually an individual struggling to make sense of, and succeed in, an alienating world.
• Explores contrasting themes: alienation / belonging; poverty / wealth; love / loss.
• Writers explored the immigrants’ journey to self-define as they struggle with questions of identity and belonging, after experiencing cultural displacement.
• Character identity is often questionable and unstable, this shows how identities are not fixed.
• The world is shown through globalization and the mixing of cultures, each one adapting to their (new) environment.
• The use of irony is common, many times to question authority.
• It shows that there can be chaos all around but you can take charge of your own fate. There are opportunities everywhere.

Narrative point of view

• Unreliable narrator (creating madness).
• Omniscient narrator.
• A break in lineal narrative where the story is told from multiple points of view, showing there is always more than one way to look at an issue.
• Discontinuity in space and time.
• Diversions in the plot, for example, accidental happenings, false leads etc.
• Epistolary forms: letters and diaries.
• Metafiction: the narrator or characters are aware that they are part of a work of fiction.
• Intertextuality: can reference other literary works or pop culture.
• Stories inside stories.
• Open endings.

Themes and Motifs

• Elements of coincidence and chance.
• Guessing: there is always a certain amount of ambiguity whether in the plot and its ending, multiple perspectives, or the narration.
• Drugs and alcohol.
• Name changes.
• Playful attitude (irony and parody).

Deconstructionism: the rejection of institutions

Deconstructionism is a complex movement that will be dealt with in another article. However, here there are some indications of this important movement, and their rejection of absolutes.

• Deconstruction challenges the traditional notions of language and its interpretation, aiming to reveal the ambiguity that lies within texts and speech.
• It challenges power structures in institutions questioning their ability to be objective structures.
• It channels cultural relativism, showing scepticism about how one culture’s beliefs and norms can be above another’s. As an extension, they looked to people to have a broader understanding of social organization.
• There is a strong use of irony and parody to undermine authority figures within institutions.
• They strongly criticize any institution connected to or supporting colonialism and imperialism, advocating a more inclusive society.

American prose since 1945

• Specific to American Postmodernism, it celebrates the capacity of the individual to progress in society by virtue of nothing more than their own luck.
• American supremacy vs. British and the Russians.
• The solidification of America as a global economic power after the devastation in Europe due to WWII.
• After World War II there were new possibilities for America, and they were extended to women and other minority groups.
• New possibilities meant more freedom and individual self-expression.
• In the 50s, 60s, and 70s there was an impact on the postwar American consciousness.
• Although laws helped to calm issues and inequalities, there were still great problems between races, above all in the south of the USA.

1940s and 50s

• There was a stable conformity to American life – during the 40s and 50s materialism converted into an all new high.
• Eisenhower Era (1953-61). A period of optimism and prosperity. He fought to ensure world security, and for Afro-American civil rights.
• The G.I. Bill (1944) passed to boost education among war veterans, it helped to educate many who would go on to write some of the most famous works, such as, Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-5.
• The Cold War: an ideological war between capitalism and communism.
• Deaths of several of the most important Modernist writers: Yeats and Freud in 1939; Fitzgerald in 1940; and of Joyce and Woolf in 1941.
• Black writers: there is a cultural melting pot in the 50s and beyond.
• Themes in the writing of this time are: how man can lead to war – cruelty in human nature.
• Jewish American writers wrote about: dangers of totalitarianism e.g. the Holocaust; arguments about new humanism; the role of Jews in America in these decades, as they have to fight to fit in, there is room for optimism.
• There are several characters from this time that did not have names. This was to produce the feeling of searching for the character’s identity, it is as if they do not exist if they have no identifying name. There is a blurring of identity, and a search for it in novels.
• Philip Roth’s writing raised the question “am I what I inherited or where I live?”
• Some characters had a sense of numbness about them.

1960s and 70s

• With JFK’s assassination in 1963, the end of the quiet 50s is here, and prosperity and optimism will end from here on out.
• There is a return in literature to politics and history, it was an ideological age where art was didactic, political, and ideological.
• Postmodernism was against perfectionism, canon, and harmony. It is an original movement looking to deconstruct traditional concepts. The narrator disappears producing “the death of the author”.
• The concept of “the death of the author” means the importance of the author’s interpretation of their own work diminishes once it has been released to the reader, and whatever their intention once was, it isn’t as powerful as the reader’s interaction and the opinion they form of the meaning.
• In the 60s they had to find a new identity and new values – alternatives to the JFK era. Alternatives included: hippies and the psychedelic age; after this life there is nothing, anti-religiousness - Nihilism.
• There were links in their literature between politics (power) and culture: civil rights, freedom of speech, black power, street violence.
• Metafiction: meta = beyond, go beyond fiction. It is when the character talks about themselves or the world around them, alluding to the fact they know this is fiction. The reader perceives a nearness and everydayness to the character, which helps them to identify with the work.
• Watery images: they are important in Christianity. In a baptism you purify your sins and are re-born.

Meaninglessness and The Absurd

• World War II produced a widespread sense of meaninglessness of human existence. A feature strongly found in The Theatre of the Absurd. They sought to convey humanity’s feelings of bewilderment, alienation, and despair, the sense that reality itself is unreal.
• In Postmodernism everything is relative. There are no truths and no grounds, so you cannot trust anything.
• They abandoned logical plot development; meaningful dialogue; and intelligible characters.
• Characters are often played by clowns, dupes, and although not without dignity, they are at the mercy of un-understandable forces.

20^th century drama

• Drama appeared later than other types of literature because of:
  • New England Puritan heritage: in the 1620s Puritans established moral norms and “theatre” was deemed immoral and outlawed.
  • A moveable frontier: there were nomadic societies and immigration, they were a nation on the move.
• Traditionally, a well-made play must tell only one story; have a unit of time: a beginning, middle, and end; and must occur in only one place.