Understanding "Post-Modernism"
Time Periods
One Basic, Common Idea:
Modernism = 1914 - 1945
Post-Modernism = 1945 - Present
From A Handbook to Literature (9th edition, page 18):
|
British Literature |
American Literature |
| Modern or Modernist Period 1914 - 1965 Post-Modernist or
Contemporary Period |
Naturalistic and Symbolistic Period Period of Conformity and Criticism Period of the Confessional Self Postmodern Period
|
Features of Postmodern Fiction:
1.) Truth and reality are problematized.
2.) Narrator often intrudes and is (or becomes) the subject of the story.
3.) Past and present are collapsed.
4.) Closure and unity are resisted.
5.) Narrative is self-conscious.
6.) History and memory are posed as nonlinear.
7.) Language's ability to name, limit, define, control, and restrict is made apparent.
Two Questions to Keep in Mind:
1.) Whose history, whose story, whose memory is foregrounded?
2.) Why or for what purpose is the story being told?
(from Dr. Joyce Malek, former ARCC professor)
Features of Post-Modernism from The Art of the Short Story
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