POSTMODERNISM Melissa, Justin, Conner, Katie.

Historical Parallels. ● End of Cold War ● Baby boom generation ● Increase in digitality (personal communication, quicker access to news/media) ● More government involvement ● Less conformity

multi-narrative stories ●several protagonists rather than focusing on one main character. ➔ SHIFT: questions modernism’s previous approaches so uses multiple ways of knowing, holding realities to be plural. ★ “a movement away from the apparent objectivity” (Klages)

fragmentation ● breaking down into smaller or separate parts. ➔ SHIFT: modernism emphasized stability and control, shifted into diverse and less concrete ideas. ★ example: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisnero (told through vignettes)

Emphasis on Impressionism Subjectivity ●Modernism is marked by multiple realities rather than a universal one, focuses on individual’s perception to something. ➔ Shift: Objective universal truth to subjective individual truths ★ “An emphasis on HOW seeing takes place, rather than on WHAT is being perceived.” (Klages) ➢ Example: stream of consciousness writing subjectivism/impressionism

organized disorder ●Postmodernists choose to reject certain boundaries in favor of more chaotic order, such as non-linear timelines, unreliable narrators, multiple view-points, maximalism, magical realism, and often referenced numerous other novels via intertextuality. ➔ Shift from Experimentation->Experimentation of Experimentation ★ Historical parallel- reflection of former actions taken during the WW2 era, such as the nuclear initiation, and seeing the world as already messed up. ➢ Example “Catch-22”, by Joseph Heller.

paranoia ●A severe distrust of the current system ➔ Shift faith in the possibilities of current society (trust the machine)->a deep skepticism, and rejection of society (don’t trust the machine) ★ Historical Parallels- Hippie free love, “Make love, not War”, protests against the Vietnam War. ➢ Example “Slaughterhouse-Five”, by Kurt Vonnegut

pastiche ●a postmodern aesthetic that encourages creative artists to look to past art styles and combines it with other various art styles to create a new one ➔ Shift: science was the way to discovery-> looking to the past to determine the create new ideas ★ Example:”Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” a tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard

Synthesis of human dynamism Umberto Boccioni 1913

The Son of Man Rene Magritte 1964