Eng426 20th century english literature

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Arguably, postmodernism has influenced the prose form of literary writing more than the other genres. In this Unit, the concerns of postmodernists in fiction as well as their thematic preoccupations and techniques will be discussed.

0. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this Unit you should be able to:

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  discuss the themes and techniques of postmodernist writing
  
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  relate these themes and techniques to those of modernism and differentiate between them.
  

0. MAIN CONTENT

1. 
   Postmodernist Themes and Concerns
   

After the Second World War, people started losing interest in modernist idealism especially modernist belief that fiction could bring a change to the way people see themselves in a changing society. The Second World war reinforced people’s belief that modernity was not a piece of cake and it was not a perfect change to civilization, rationality or humanity but that modernity brought along with it science and technological innovations including weapons of mass destruction. Postmodernism as a literary movement characterized late twentieth century literature and is helpful in understanding English literature of the latter part of the twentieth century.
Postmodernism questions objective reality and claims that reality cannot be known through reasoning or the senses. Reality is created through its representations. Postmodernism also rejects grand or master narratives and their claims to totality. It questions the notions of grand narratives as they are full of contradictions and is not as
total or stable as they present themselves. Grand narratives refer to basic and long standing histories of civilization or reality has no basis as the world changes and everything in the past or history becomes unreal, a fantasy.
Postmodernist themes are almost the same with those of modernism. They both look into issues of poverty, oppression whether it is class oppression, gender subjugation, racism, aloneness or lack of communication, helplessness, sexuality, politics, and so on. Just as literature will tend to question and portray all of the issues that confront man in his day to day activities, postmodernism also attend to these issues though it does not mourn these realities but rather engages them playfully and celebrate these situations.

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