Postmodern Literature

1. Postmodernism
(1945 - 1980)
Kevin Li, Paul Bleich,
Trevor Filseth

2. The five-second version

3. Postmodern Art
Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue?
(Barnett Newman, 1966)
Meaning up to interpretation
One interpretation: Perversion of
European tricolor, with red being the
looming threat of communism, and the
blue (democracy) and yellow
(individualism) suppressed

4. Loss of Human Life and Rights
World War 2
Atrocities committed during World
War 2 led to a very pessimistic
attitude, and a loss of faith in
governments
Lead to rejection of modernism,
which was perceived as totalitarian
Communism and Cold War
Spread of Communism throughout Asia and
Europe
Constant threat of attack lead to a paranoid
attitude
Vietnam and Korean war - general public did
not favor the wars, support for government all
time low
Rejection and suspicion of powerful authority

5. Scientific Developments Confuse
● Quantum Physics challenges idea
that everything can be predicted
● Unexplained astronomical
phenomena lead to theory of dark
matter
● Upheaval of traditional knowledge
of science leads to general
confusion and questioning
modernism/early 20th century
ideals

6. Cultural Context + A.D.
● Counterculture era
● Political upheaval
○ Unpopularity of Vietnam War
○ Protests - DNC 1968, Kent State
○ Nixon’s impeachment
● Social Justice
○ Civil Rights
○ Stonewall Riots
● Loss of faith in the United States and the
American Dream
○ Attempted recovery

7. Modernism vs Postmodernism
Modernism Postmodernism
● Flourished 1860s to 1940s
● Logic and science prevail
● Searches for fundamental truth
● Much credence to original work
● Begun after 1968
● Chance/fatalism prevail
○ irrational or unscientific
● Denies existence of fundamental truth
● Originality irrelevant

8. Characteristics of Postmodern
Literature (Part 1)
Postmodernism encompasses many
movements, so this list is not comprehensive
or universal
Sense of Paranoia (eg. Cuckoo’s nest by
Ken Kesey, 1984 by George Orwell)
Lack of Absolute Truth (as well as absolute
morality, justice, etc)
Nonlinearity, (eg. “The Babysitter” by Robert
Cooger), multiple viewpoints can happen
at the same time and seemingly contradict

9. Characteristics (Part 2)
● Metafiction
○ Breaks the fourth wall, just like this slide does
1. Experimental Formating
a. questioned accepted writing conventions (eg. House of Leaves)
● Intertextuality, or references to other authors and works
○ Lord of the Flies, reference to Coral Island (similar story of young boys
with protagonists named Ralph and Jack)
○ Concept of originality questioned

10. Characteristics (Part 3)
Hyperreality - critiques the information age and features confusion of reality and
virtual reality, e.g. The Truman Show
Magic Realism - related to hyperreality, mixes magical, supernatural, or
outlandish elements with the real world, e.g. Animal Farm by George Orwell,
talking animals

11. Except from “A Close Run Thing with the
Police” by George Szirtes
Where have you put it,
the dark I mean, she asks me,
but I cannot say.
The dark's a cliché,
I plead without conviction.
There are words and states.
That's just clever talk,
though not altogether false,
and it burns my mouth.
Then I remember
those pockets filled with darkness
I had to empty.
Turn out your pockets,
says the policeman. That dark,
is it yours, he asks.
Metafiction - The author
acknowledges the darkness being a
“cliche”, using it to represent the things
that it is cliche for (the evil inherent in
everyone?)
Magic Realism - The mixing of a
supernatural element, the “darkness”
with reality, using the darkness to
symbolize a variety of things
Paranoia - The police officer is
presented as a threat, and authority is
regarded with suspicion. Because evil
is present in everyone, everyone is
running away from the officer, trying to
hide the “darkness” in their pockets

12. Excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s
“Howl”
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking
for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up
smoking
in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating
across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw
Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs
illuminated...
Magic Realism - Supernatural
element (Heaven, angels) mixed
intermittently with normal things
(hipsters, cities, etc)
Intertextuality - References to
God, Heaven, Islam (‘Mohammedan’)
Paranoia - the “machinery of night,”
madness of the best minds, starvation,
nakedness, hysteria

13. And, something a little more
familiar
They're out there.
Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex
acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch
them.
They're mopping when I come out the dorm, all three of
them sulky and hating everything, the time of day, the
place they're at here, the people they got to work around.
When they hate like this, better if they don't see me. I
creep along the wall quiet as dust in my canvas shoes,
but they got special sensitive equipment detects my fear
and they all look up, all three at once,
Hyperreality - Bromden’s inability to
distinguish between reality and the
surreal is highlighted in this sentence
Paranoia - The black boys, part of the
Combine, are regarded with suspicion, as
machine-like, with the goal of absolute
conformity by everyone

14. Mini-lesson!
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-
conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies
in the tomatoes!--and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never
passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in a hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got
out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

15. Warm-up - Question 1
Walt Whitman and Garcia Lorca were both poets. What
literary characteristic does this fall under?
A. Paranoia B.
Hyperreality
C. Intertextuality C.
Magical Realism

16. Question 2
“Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you
my Angel?”
I. Paranoia
II. Magical Reality
III. Metafiction
Which of these characteristics, if any, can be identified from
this line?

17. Analysis! (12 min)
1. What does the supermarket
represent, and what is
significant about what is being
sold? What message is
Ginsberg trying to convey?
2. Based on your interpretation
of what the supermarket is,
what might these questions be
trying to convey? Hint:
previous line/s (Come up with
a thesis statement about the
passage)
“Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are you
my Angel?”
3. Walt Whitman and Garcia Lorca
were both poets associated with war
(Whitman with American Civil War
and Lorca with Spanish Civil War).
What messages might Ginsberg be
attempting to convey based on this?
4. Based on your previous response,
what do you think of the following
quote? (Come up with a thesis
statement about the passage)
“What America did you have when
Charon quit poling his ferry and you
got out on a smoking bank and stood
watching the boat disappear on the
black waters of Lethe?”(Charon and
the river Lethe are both part of Greek
myth, and are in underworld of the
dead)
5. “Will we stroll dreaming of the
lost America of love past blue
automobiles in driveways, home to
our silent cottage?”
What do you think this says about
America and the American dream?
6. How does the previous quote
relate to this one? (Come up with a
thesis statement about the
passage)
“What peaches and what
penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of
husbands! Wives in the avocados,
babies in the tomatoes!”
Groups3and6
Groups1and4
Groups2and5

18. Wrap-up (time TBD)
Based a key idea from the text (could be
your thesis), make a quick sketch of what
you think, in the style of post-modern
artwork.
(Look at the cover of your copy of
Cuckoo’s Nest for ideas)
Focus on one specific line in the
passage, or the passage as a whole
Share with your neighbors when you’re
done, what you drew, and what it
represents.
“I wandered in and out of the brilliant
stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store
detective.”
EXAMPLE: