2. The rejection of the idea of modernism and encouraging the use of
elements from historical and literature formats while playing with
the realms of reality
 Postmodernism is set apart from modernism by the reaction to the
rational, scientific, and historical aspects of the modern age
 The writing is self-conscious, experimental, and ironic
 Is concerned with imprecision and unreliability of language and
epistemology
 Began in the post-World War II era, roughly the 1950s, gained
popularity the 1960s in the social and political unrest in the world

3. 1. premodernism: traditional, following authority
2. modernism: rejection of tradition and authority in
favor of reason and natural science
Focuses on the individual’s quest for truth
3. postmodernism: rejection of the individual with an
emphasis upon the collective
 Collage and intertwining of diversity,
 Focuses on the merging of subject and object, self
and other

4.  Modernist movement: Tries to explain the chaos in society
(like war, drugs, etc…)
Tries to create empathy with the reader about the chaos
 Postmodernism: cheerful chaos
 It’s about not having the answers and being content and still
having fun
 Postmodern Themes:
 Illustrating societies’ mania
 Being weird for the sake of being weird
 Chaos with hysterical laughter
 The desire to play with the rules of reality
 To talk forever about absolutely nothing

5.  Relies heavily on fragmentation and paradox
 It makes the narrator unreliable and at times
distant

6.  A quest to show the normality of chaos
 Metafiction ( device that addresses the
elements of fiction )
This undermines the authority of the author, for
unexpected narrative shifts, to advance a story
in a unique way, for emotional distance, or to
comment on the act of storytelling.
 Pastiche: the combination of subjects and
genres not previously deemed fit for literature

7.  intertextuality: the relationship between one text and
another, commonly manifests as a references to fairy
tales
 Different perspectives
 Irony, playfulness, dark comedy

8.  the individual is not an isolated creation
 the sense of paranoia: the belief that there's an
ordering system behind the chaos of the
 Search for the absurd

9.  “People who can comfort the dead can also
chase after them to hurt them further-a reverse
ancestor worship…”
 Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
 Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother
told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up
on. She tested our strength to establish realities.-
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior