This document discusses key aspects of postmodernism. It rejects modernism's focus on rationality and emphasizes experimental and ironic writing that questions concepts like language and knowledge. Postmodernism emerged after World War 2 and gained popularity in the 1960s during social and political unrest. It focuses on chaos and uncertainty rather than seeking universal truths, and employs techniques like fragmentation, paradox, and intertextuality.

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