Postmodernism (Literature)

Silas Weir Mitchell in 1872 defined as "phantom limb" the sensation and feelings of
anxiety, confusion and even pain the amputee receives from an absent body part. By extending
this concept and applying it to the architectural imagery within literature, it is possible to observe
the dynamics between the characters and their structural environment. This thesis explores the
relation between spatial structure and identity in two Latin American works: "Walking Around"
(1933) by Pablo Neruda and Aura (1962) by Carlos Fuentes. Both authors introduce architecture
as an intrinsic element in the construction of their narrative; Neruda's poetic voice wanders
around a seemingly living city, while Fuentes's characters abandon the city to become part of a
house. The architectural imagery of both texts leads the reader to explore the construction of its
literary subjects and to see the physical space as their "phantom limbs." This reading will
elucidate the importance of architecture within Latin American literature as well as reveal the
maneuvering of the structural representations in the construction of the Latin America identity.

In my thesis, I argue that the 1 ih -century Spanish writer, Maria de Zayas y
Sotomayor, in a unique form of 'mimesis,' uses elements of magic to transform the
popular concept of the Spanish witch. Drawing on theories from Jacques Lacan's
mirror phase, Homi Bhabha and Barbara Fuchs's notion of mimesis, and Judith
Butler's idea of gender performitivity, I demonstrate how Zayas frees the witch from
the subjugated language constructed by the Catholic Church and society of her time.
I examine six of the short stories in her two novels to show how the author alters the
role of the witch associated with the devil, transforming her to a saint associated with
"lo magico de los cielos, " assigning the diabolical role to the man.

A central paradox in modernism is its disdain for mass culture, despite mass
culture 's undeniable presence in modernist literature. American authors writing
during the early twentieth century tried to establish themselves as "highbrow" by
leaving the U.S. and traveling to Europe. In doing so, they created a particular
aesthetic characterized by depictions of the transportation that facilitated this travel.
These depictions reveal modernism's dependence on mass culture, and more
importantly, create a space in which modernist authors can negotiate what was once
a choice between high or low culture, exile or tourist, and ultimately, modernism or
mass culture. Analyzing the car and train scenes in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is
the Night and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises reveals the hybrid spaces
made available to these authors through transportation.

Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli by Ronald Firbank and Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf both liberate the text from the expected form to engage emotional awareness and instigate reform of societal standards. Employing Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of the carnivalesque and grotesque realism as a means to create this perspective is unconventional; nevertheless, Firbank, predominantly misunderstood, and Woolf, more regarded but largely misinterpreted, both address sexuality and religion to parody what they believe to be the retrogression of civilization by narrating christenings, pageants, and other forms of carnival. Both novels forefront nonconformity, and the conspicuous influence of debasement is identified as a form of salient renewal. Christopher Ames, Melba-Cuddy Keane, and Alice Fox have already expressed remarkable insight into Woolf; unfortunately not a single scholar has approached Firbank’s text in this manner, and this essay discusses the value of both authors in the aspect of Bakhktin’s theories.

Since its appearance in 1985, Don DeLillo's novel White Noise has been regarded as the prototype of the postmodern novel---though not for style and form, but rather for content and theme. DeLillo's postmodern society is the site of dissipated "structures" of power and authority, the hyperreal realm of simulacrum. The narrator---J.A.K. (a.k.a. Jack) Gladney---cannot fathom this world of disseminated authority, where knowledge and power are continually generated behind what Michel Foucault calls "the great abstraction of exchange". My thesis suggests that Jack's struggle to cope in this society is complicated by his own, exaggerated subjectivity. He is, in the words of Leonard Wilcox, a quintessential "modernist". His plight therefore becomes a proxy battle for these two epics, the modern and postmodern.

Traditional fairy tales represent some of the oldest and most archetypal forms of literature. However, as humanity rapidly evolves, the genre and content of traditional fairy tales still operates as a prevalent socializing agent that fails to promote pluralism. Instead, traditional fairy tales illustrate and uphold limited gender roles and expectations. This paper examines Hermann Hesse's role as a pioneer in a now burgeoning movement of fairy tale revisions that blur boundaries between fantasy and reality by introducing specific, everyday locations, countries, and individuals coupled with a copious use of the double. This formula draws the reader into the tale via the uncanny and prompts a reevaluation of especially violent historical moments and issues that affect all within a society. Hesse's work within this new tradition of revisions of beloved fairy tales, as well as his creation of literary fairy tales, has significantly influenced the work of key postmodern feminist fairy tale revisionists like Jeanette Winterson.

This project considers four writers that have used postmodern narrative strategies to reconfigure classic pulp science fiction tropes. The primary texts are Catherine L. Moore's "Shambleau," Eleanor Arnason's "The Warlord of Saturn's Moons", Robert Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones", and Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin". Each experiments with narrative voices or uses a story-within-a-story structure. These strategies enable the authors to engage and comment on the process of how traditional tropes and narratives are brought into a new context through appropriation and reconstruction.

In John Fowles's last two novels, he alters his authorial project of discovering freedom for an individual from a social system to how a social system can be changed from within. Using Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection and her interpretation of the semiotic versus symbolic processes of signification, readers can determine how an imbalance in the human signifying process has become corrupted by power. Through Fowles's heroines and semiotic irruptions of the symbolic order in both Mantissa and A Maggot, Fowles reveals weaknesses in the symbolic, and consequently, moments where transformation of a patriarchal, symbolic system can be recognized. These moments of strain on the symbolic are significant because they cause a disruption of the rules and borders that define a social system like patriarchy. By calling attention to these moments, the categorical imperatives that have been imposed on women and perpetuated for the purpose of maintaining power relations can thus be subverted. In Mantissa and A Maggot, Fowles accomplishes a breaking of the boundaries, both within and of the text, by providing a literary space where readers can glimpse the power of the semiotic, the corruption of social conditioning, and gain a new perspective of their own symbolic/social system in the real world.

Einsteinian relativity forever altered our understanding of the metaphysics of time. This study considers how this scientific theory affects the formulation of time in postmodern narratives as a necessary step toward understanding the relationship between empirical science and literary art. Two novels by Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five, exemplify this synthesis. Close readings of these texts reveal an underlying temporal scheme deeply informed by relativity. Furthermore, this study explores how relativity manifests in these texts in light of the block universe concept, Gèodelian universes, and strange loop phenomena. Vonnegut's treatment of free will is also discussed. All of these considerations emphasize Vonnegut's role as a member of the Third Culture, an author who consciously bridges C.P. Snow's two cultures.

This thesis explores the ways that certain artists-including Joseph Conrad, Alan Moore, Richard Attenborough, and Francis Ford Coppola-break from their inherited traditions in order to speak from an alternative perspective to western discourse. Conventional narrative formulas prescribe that meaning will be revealed in a definitive end, but all of the texts discussed reveal other avenues through which it is discerned. In Heart of Darkness, the tension between two divergent narratives enables Conrad to speak beyond his social context and imperialist limitations to demonstrate that identity is socially constructed. In Watchmen, Moore breaks from comic convention to illustrate ways meaning may be ascertained despite the lack of plot ends. The third chapter explores the ways that Attenborough and Coppola subvert technical and plot conventions to resist static constitutions of identity endemic to Hollywood film. The several texts discussed subvert the Self/Other duality by suggesting alternatives to the western narrative model.