“In contemporary society and culture-postindustrial society, postmodern culture-…the grand narrative has lost its credibility, regardless of what mode of unification it uses, regardless of whether it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation.”
Jean-François Lyotard
Postmodernism came into being around the late 1960’s as people were tired of the inadequacies of modernism. They began to focus on building your own narrative and not focusing on one simple truth. It focuses on the fact that truths are indefinable as they are guided by experience and everyones experiences are different. When utilizing the postmodern approach in analysis of a text it enables the reader leeway in their interpretation and typically reveals something about the narrative in order to translate a larger, sometimes paradoxical, idea to the audience.
Postmodernism (and postmodern literature) essentially consist of these characteristics:
-intertextuality- interrelationship between texts- one text’s meaning may depend on another text
-metafiction-the author alludes to their own work- sometimes for comedic effect
-self- reference- can be a form of metafiction
-inversion of narrative-in some way inverts a narrative/ plot trope
-Pastiche- referencing some other works style- imitates another works style
-Maximalism-opposite of minimalism- everything in excess
-Irony- contrasts with what one expects of something
-Hyperreality-cannot distinguish between reality and a simulation of reality- i.e. The Matrix
-Paranoia-suspicious of the truth- cannot determine what is the truth
-Fragmentation- a combination of many different elements
-Post-World War 2- During World War 2 modernism was in full swing and people soon realized they didn’t agree with this ideology and so postmodernism came to be.
This can be seen as an example of postmodernism as it is paradoxical. It depicts a Pipe and says under it “this is not a pipe”, which is true as it is really a picture of a pipe not an actual pipe- it may even really be a picture of a pipe on a screen as you are reading this on a computer or phone. It is this concept of there being many acceptable truths that is imperative in postmodernism.
Postmodern with a captital P 