CHAPTER I
POSTMODERNISM: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1.1 Introduction:
Postmodernism is cultural and literary phenomenon that emerged
after World War II and covers a huge body of critical thinking. Since its
emergence many critical and literary discourses tried to define it but still
it is not defined comprehensively. Rather many intellectuals think that it
is vague to define as it is still in flux and slippery one to capture. Umberto
Eco aptly expressed this nebulous concept of postmodernism in his
Reflections on the Name of the Rose (1985) when he writes,
“Unfortunately, postmodern is a term bon a tout faire . . . applied today to
anything the user of the term happens to like” (64). Eco’s observations
put forth clearly the vague nature of postmodernism that covers the vast
body of critical thinking including sociology, theology, literature,
architecture etc. As a result, the term postmodernism is associated with
indeterminacy, ambivalence, irony and detachment. It is this “amorphous
and politically volatile nature of postmodernism which makes the
phenomenon itself exceedingly difficult to define, if not per se
impossible” (Huyssen 58).
The investigations in its origin puts forth that it was first coined in
the decade of 1940s in order to name a reaction in contrast to the modern
movement in architecture. But soon the term become a catch word among
the critics of art in general and literary theorists in particular. Especially
in 1960s the term was elaborately used by American cultural critics Susan
Sontag and Leslie Fielder in the context of literature. Their critical
discourses are aimed at defining the ‘new sensibility’ in the literary
creations. Yet, the stances taken by contemporary commentators of this
29
term are confused and confusing. The dilemma that whether should one
call it as an extension of the modern phenomena or should it be treated as
the contradictory attitude, remains very prominent subject of debate in the
critical discourses of the contemporary period. It is resulted that the
contemporary literary scholars get an impression that the term is an
‘empty practice of recycling previous artistic style’ (Nicol 1). But soon
this phase of confusion meets to its end and the following decade sees the
rise of new phenomenal changes in the every discipline of the modern
sciences and every genre of modern art. Nicol in his book The Cambridge
Introduction to Postmodern Fiction rightly registers this change, when he
writes:
In the following decades the term began to figure in
academic
disciplines
besides
literary
criticism
and
architecture – such as social theory, cultural and media
studies, visual arts, philosophy, and history. Such wideranging usage meant that the term became overloaded with
meaning, chiefly because it was being used to describe
characteristics of the social and political landscape as well as
a whole range of different examples of cultural production.
(ibid)
This philosophical phenomenon becomes so much popular as the
social scene and cultural context is altered due to the radical and rapid
developments in the fields of science, technology, economics, and
especially media. The advancement in science and technology
transformed the world into a single civilization with homogeneity in the
metropolitan consciousness and similarity in the problems of culture and
society. This ‘new sensibility’ gets its classical expressions in the
30
contemporary literary enterprises which are afterwards grouped and
named as ‘Postmodern’.
However, it is impossible to define postmodernism as being a
separate ideology without the occurrence of modernism. Besides that, the
boundaries between modernism and postmodernism are not clear
because, firstly, its emergence is not certain and secondly, it connotes too
many debated ideas from the modernist’s philosophy. As a result the term
postmodernism is always differed from modernism according to its
different use. This situation formulates the contradictory opinions of
literary scholars and critics about the term postmodernism. Many critics
bring to notice some of the characteristics of modernism that are taken to
its extreme stage by postmodernism to trace its roots as well as
continuation of some of the modern tendencies in it. For example, the
avant-garde ideology that was flourished in the modern period is still
continuing in the postmodern period to which the literary historians call
as a new avant-garde.
On the other hand, the term postmodernism is largely understood
as a reaction against modernism. Modernism was the product of
Protestantism and Capitalism which puts forth the tendency that gives
privilege to human being as a separate entity where individual rights,
individual psyche and individual personality reside. These forces
establish individual’s relationship with God as well as develop his
tendency to earn money. Postmodernism undermines this ideology of
modernism to expose its hypocrisy. It rejects the ideology of liberal
humanism, its literature and culture which privileges an individual to
express his personal opinions about the world in his unique and authentic
style. The literature produced during this period is ironic and
31
disillusioned about its own nature. It acknowledges its own futility as a
form of literature which breaks off from the traditional values of
modernism. It recognises the purposelessness of the traditional ways of
making sense of the world out of reality.
Postmodernists reject the assumed certainty of scientific efforts to
explain reality and traces that reality comes into being only through one’s
interpretation. The sense of loss of reality makes them to destroy
traditional pretensions. For them the traditional mode of looking at the
world as a reality which traces identity, unity, authority, and certainty is
inadequate. They consider the world as extraordinary, horrific or absurd,
which explores difference, separation, textuality, scepticism, and only an
imitation of reality. That means history is only illusionary, an imitation of
life of the period and not reality and the outcome of one’s own
experiences are imperfect and relative, rather than certain and universal.
This sensibility of the postmodern world is aptly expressed in the words
of Pillai as he writes that the present world is the world “of altered human
relationships, of epistemological scepticism, of high technology and
strange and distorted history, of an anarchic and revolutionary
subjectivism and a disoriented sense of human purpose” (29). In such a
world, postmodernists “feel that there is no point in creating fiction that
gives an illusion of life when life itself seems so illusory” (ibid). This
situation leads them to create the fictionality in their works to represent
the world from another’s point of view. They construct the world and
narrate it from others perspective to maintain the relationship between
language and the fictional world with the real world existed outside.
Thus, the term postmodernism is used to refer to a point of
departure for the works of literature, philosophy, art, critical theory,
32
architecture, design, and interpretation of history, law, culture and
religion since the late twentieth century. At this juncture, it is necessary to
define the term ‘postmodernism’ and comprehend its literary features.
1.2 Defining Postmodernism:
The term ‘postmodern’ comes into philosophical lexicon with the
publication of Jean-François Lyotard’s La Condition Postmoderne in
1979 (English: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
1984). Since then it is widely used by various scholars to describe a set of
critical, strategic and rhetorical practices. The intellectuals of the
contemporary period always attempt to define this term in the context of
its predecessor, modernism. Few of them attempt to locate the similar
ideological threads which are followed by the postmodern philosophy and
even practised in the postmodern art. But on the contrary few literary
critics and philosophers take the opposite stance in their literary creations
and philosophical treatises to point out the contradictory attitudes
reflected in it. Therefore, the term postmodern is identified by many
critics with the concepts like difference, repetition, trace, simulacrum,
and hyperreality whereas they reject the terms like presence, identity,
historical progress and rationality. It is necessary to have a brief review of
the significant definitions of the term ‘Postmodern’ in the literary as well
as in the philosophical context in order to calculate the features of the
postmodernism and try to prepare a comprehensive and more illustrative
definition of the term in the literary context.
American Heritage Dictionary defines Postmodernism as a term –
. . . relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts
against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing
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traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying
modernist styles or practices to extremes: ‘It [a roadhouse] is
so architecturally interesting . . . with its postmodern wooden
booths and sculptural clock’.
This definition points out that postmodernism is a contemporary
philosophical and artistic reaction as well as continuation of the modern
phenomenon. It uses classical elements to reject modern tendencies.
Another significant discourse which must be mentioned here is
Jean-Francois Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge (1984), in which he attempts to capture his understanding
about the cultural transformations in the contemporary period. As the
period is marked by the fundamental, rapid and radical changes in the
human life, human breed have to face various challenges in the altered
political, cultural and social context. These changes are analysed by
Lyotard and generalized certain maxims which afterwards become the
major principles of the postmodern philosophy and the important features
of the postmodern art. Lyotard defines postmodernism as: “I define
postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives” (xxiv). He identifies
‘metanarratives’ with the grand narratives and throws light on the
emergence of the ‘little narratives’ which create the world of fragmented
truths and the altered conception of reality which become the major
thematic concerns of the postmodern art. For instance the postmodern
novels use the experimental narrative space in which all cultural and
traditional significances are crystallized. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s
Children (1981), which sets the new parameters of the narrative
techniques of the postmodern literature, rebels against the established
concept of truth.
34
Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism (1991) discusses the term postmodernism in relation with the
condition of late capitalism. According to Jameson, postmodernism is
ambiguous in nature because it either expresses the deeper historical
impulses that are irrepressible or diverts these impulses. Therefore, he
proposes to grasp the concept as an attempt to think present historically in
the age that has forgotten how to think historically. So, he defines the
term “Postmodernism not as a style but rather as a cultural dominant: a
conception which allows for the presence and coexistence of a range of
very different, yet subordinate, features” (4). His observations clearly
show that though postmodernism is a separate phenomenon or a break off
from modernism; it has its roots in modernism which helps to establish
grounds for new thoughts. So it will be not an exaggeration to call
postmodernism as a continuation as well as break off from the modern
tendencies.
Following Jameson, Linda Hutcheon in her A Poetics of
Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (1988) also tries to capture the
term postmodernism in the context of cultural changes that occurred
during the recent period. She focuses on some of the significant points
that overlap with modernist aesthetic practices to express a flexible
conceptual structure of postmodernism. In the altered historical, social
and political context, she defines the term as:
Postmodernism is a contradictory phenomenon, one that uses
and abuses, installs and then subverts, the very concepts it
challenges – be it in architecture, literature, painting,
sculpture, film, video, dance, TV, music, philosophy,
35
aesthetic
theory,
psychoanalysis,
linguistics,
or
historiography. (3)
She thinks that the term postmodernism is itself contradictory in nature as
it undermines as well as uses some of the modern concepts to which it
challenges. She identifies postmodernism as a cultural activity which is
necessarily contradictory in its approach towards the late capitalist
society and marked with “the presence of the past” (4).
Charles Jencks proposes rather a comprehensive definition of
postmodernism in his book What is Post-modernism? (1996) in which he
articulates:
Post-modernism is fundamentally the eclectic mixture of any
tradition with that of the immediate past: it is both the
continuation of Modernism and its transcendence. Its best
works are characteristically double-coded and ironic, making
a feature of the wide choice, conflict and discontinuity of
traditions, because this heterogeneity most clearly captures
our pluralism. (7)
For Jencks, postmodernism is a philosophical approach that emerges out
of the mishmash of past and present ideas. In one way it extends
modernist’s ideas at some extent, whereas in other way it surpasses these
tendencies in order to break new grounds for the current philosophical
ideas. Such a nature of the term makes it overloaded with the
characteristics like irony, ambiguity, discontinuity, fragmentation etc.
Another important theorist is Jean Baudrillard who in his book The
Ecstasy of Communication (1985) defines the term postmodernism as: “It
36
is the end of interiority and intimacy, the overexposure and transparence
of the world which traverses him without obstacle. He is now only a pure
screen, a switching centre for all the networks of influence” (14).
Baudrillard’s observations put forth the view that the postmodern world is
exploded rapidly with the overexposure of radical developments in the
fields of science and technology, which has made the simulated versions
of everything.
With this regard, another significant definition proposed by David
Harvey in his essay The Condition of Postmodernity (1990), which
captures acutely the phenomenal changes as: “The most startling fact
about postmodernism [is] its total acceptance of the ephemerality,
fragmentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic” (44).
Stephen R. C. Hicks in his book Explaining Postmodernism:
Skepticism and Socialism Rousseau to Foucault (2004), gives a
comprehensive and comparative chart which compares the Premodernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism in social, cultural and
philosophical scenes.
Chart 1.3 Defining Pre-modernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism:
Pre-modernism
Metaphysics Realism:
Supernaturalism
Epistemology Mysticism and/or
faith
Original Sin; Subject
Human
Nature
to God’s will
Collectivism:
Ethics
altruism
Politics and Feudalism
Economics
Modernism
Realism: naturalism
Postmodernism
Anti-realism
Objectivism: Experience
and Reason
Tabula rasa and
autonomy
Individualism
Social
subjectivism
Social
construction
Collectivism:
egalitarianism
Socialism
Liberal capitalism
37
When
Where
The Enlightenment; 20th
century sciences,
business, and technical
fields
and Medieval
This
comparison
comprehensive.
The
makes
the
changes
term
observed
Late 20th century
humanities and
related
professions
(8)
postmodernism
in
the
more
Metaphysical,
Epistemological, Ethical, political and cultural contexts reflect the
postmodern tendencies which are further observed in the postmodern
literature.
Aforementioned
philosophical
discourses
point
out
that
postmodernism is a cultural and literary movement born out of its
predecessor modernism and carries certain tendencies of modernism to its
extreme stage as well as rebels and challenges to these tendencies at other
context. It is both a continuation as well as a break from modernism, and
is marked by the characteristics such as fragmentation, discontinuity,
irony, ambiguity, ephemera, chaos, scepticism etc. Each definition
mentioned above throws light on the nebulous nature of the concept of
postmodernism in the altered social, cultural, economical and political
situation of the contemporary period from different perspectives. Beside
these definitions, it is essential here to take a brief review of the
postmodern philosophy and the contemporary thoughts in order to
comprehend the term ‘postmodernism’.
1.3.1 Postmodern Philosophy and the Contemporary Thoughts:
Postmodern
structuralism
and
philosophy
is
existentialism
influenced
which
by
criticise
phenomenology,
the
traditional
assumptions and structures of philosophy. Rather it is sceptical of the
modernist’s values and assumptions as it portrayed the world of
38
industrialization, a machine age, which privileges urbanization and
bureaucracy. The art-forms of the modern period were genuine, original
and exposed at a depth, and the concentration is given more on the formal
structures along with the rational approach to the world. Postmodernists
intentionally depart from this approach of modern theorists. They identify
the postmodern era as the space age dominated by virtual reality which
sustains consumer’s interest, who is aware about the logic of market and
its laws of late capitalism. The aesthetic forms of the period depend upon
other texts for their production where mixed style and genre are found
with the juxtaposition of low culture and high culture. The playful
language is used for an ironic effect to reject the modernist’s notion of
sincerity and earnestness.
According to postmodern theorists, twenty first century is the
world of information explosion, where every aspect of life is influenced
by the technology, post industrialization and media culture. In such a
world, human being is living merely an illusionary life. He is isolated
from the real aspects of life. Even he is not living a life in real sense but
only constructing a scene. Instead of exchanging real objects that may be
felt by sense perception, he merely exchanges the information with the
help of symbols. That means he is living a virtual life and not real. Jean
Baudrillard has concentrated his thoughts around this virtual reality of
life. The virtual reality is one that enables to experience the computer
generated duplicate world as if it were real. But according to Baudrillard,
the postmodern society is already living a life of virtual reality through its
interaction with reality TV shows or TV news, or establishing a
successful communication rapport via email with unknown people.
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Baudrillard’s assumptions about the hyperreality are based on
Marcel Mauss’ economic theory. In his The Gifts (1953) Mauss points out
the changing pattern of exchange in the society. He says that in past ages,
there was a gift exchange system in which things were exchanged. This
traditional pattern of exchange is replaced by the commodity-exchange
system in which goods is exchanged for money. But Baudrillard says that
this commodity-exchange system is also replaced by exchange of signs.
These signs are endless, meaningless, and more ambiguous as they are
words and images instead of things. Anything can be exchanged by the
signs. Baudrillard uses the term ‘the code’ for this interchangeability of
signs. The code converts reality into the system of signs which provides
everything with a meaning and a value related to other things. As reality
is transformed into the system of sign which further produces stability,
difference and meaning in the universe by creating binary oppositions.
The code creates exact duplicate copy of original which cannot be
identified as a copy. Baudrillard points out that the contemporary culture
is a reproduction or exact duplicate copy of the original. Baudrillard uses
the term simulation to this process of reproduction. Disneyland, opinion
polls are the examples of such a reproduction which are indistinguishable
from original. In other words, Baudrillard’s simulation puts forth an idea
that postmodern society is living hyperreal life by its interaction with the
representation. Thus, simulation is a process that leads the people to
realise the world around them by creating real aspects with the help of
technology. Its effort to explain everything in the world and dividing the
world into a system of oppositions, differences and values creates the
reality in the world. Thus, simulation not only replaces the real world but
reproduces it.
40
Baudrillard’s argument in his essay “The Implosion of Meaning in
the Media” (1983) about the production of artificial meaning rather than
actual is another key concept in evocating the hyperreality of life.
According to Baudrillard, in the postmodern society information is
excessively generated in the form of media messages. The media
messages have multiple networks of simulations and supposed to have
ability to provide structure and meaning to the society and, ultimately, a
reality to which he called “alpha and omega” (80). However, the belief
that information will provide meaning and structure to the society is
shattered as it itself is collapsing which further results in creation of
duplicate meaning. He says that the hope is collapsing “because where we
think that information produces meaning, the opposite occurs.
Information devours its own content” (80).
Though postmodernism and poststructuralism are different
theories, they both share the same approach about the idea of real. In fact,
the idea of the real is firstly used by the structuralism and as a reaction to
this idea poststructuralist’s theory is emerged. Where postmodernism,
especially Baudrillard’s theory, is based on the idea of separation of
human being from the real world, poststructuralist’s theory is based on
the separation of language from the real world. In his theory, Ferdinand
de Saussure traces that language performs its role independently without
the conventions of the world. According to him language is the system of
signs which is composed of the signifier and the signified. Signifier refers
to the actual image and sound of the thing whereas signified is the
concept or definition through which signifier is understood. That means
when something is spoken; it is understood only through the concept of
that signifier, the code which is attributed to that signifier.
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This theoretical framework of structuralism provides ground for
interpreting postmodern fiction. Poststructuralists believe that the
meaning of the text depends upon the relationship between the words in
the text and with the other literary text and not from the outside world to
which it refers. To demonstrate self-reflexivity of postmodern fiction,
literary theorists like Waugh and McHale used the Lacanian idea of
reality. Jacques Lacan used Saussure’s theory to formulate how the
meaning is derived from its position in the overall system of the society.
He says that an individual’s identity depends upon his or her position into
the society which is constructed by the system of meanings, codes,
conventions and rules to which he calls the ‘symbolic order’. This
symbolic order can only give the meaningful existence to individual. As
symbolic order and language makes everything real meaningful and
recognizable, an individual is placed in virtual life which separates
him/her from the real world.
Thus, the sense that reality is determined by its simulated version
that creates the feeling of loss of reality, which is also the sign of mental
disorder, and reveals the postmodern theorist’s attitude to use the
language of mental disorder to describe the term postmodernism. In
Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) Fredric
Jameson describes the term as ‘schizophrenic’. Kenneth J. Gergen in his
The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life (1992)
describes it as ‘multiphrenic’, David Levin’s Pathologies of the Modern
Self: Postmodern Studies on Narcissim, Schizophrenia and Depression
(1987) describes it as ‘depressive and nihilistic’ and so on.
Fredric Jameson’s observation of postmodernism with reference to
mental disorder relates it with ‘schizophrenia’, ‘hysteria’, ‘nostalgia’,
42
‘paranoia’ and ‘waning of affect’. His ideas of postmodernism are
correlated with his analysis of the impact of the conditions of late
capitalism on individual perceptive and cognitive faculties. He thinks that
the foundation is laid for the beginning of postmodernism with the
abolition of autonomous bourgeois class that was dominant in the period
of traditional capitalism by the organizational bureaucracy. This
domination of bourgeois class also reflects in the modernist’s artworks.
The feeling of alienation, isolation, social fragmentation that was
prominent in modernism is replaced by the feeling of “‘intensities’ . . .
free-floating and impersonal and tend to be dominated by a peculiar kind
of euphoria” (16). Thus, in his Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of
Late Capitalism (1991) Jameson relates postmodernism with the late
capitalism. Late capitalism has produced the age dominated by an
electronic media which alleviates the tension of past and future. This
situation leads the human being to live a life without enough traces of
history. He fails to place himself into a proper historical context. Jameson
points to this situation to show that in the present age, history has become
only the matter of style, which is used in combination of present; it
functions merely as a pastiche. As a result postmodern era has become
“the random cannibalization of all the styles of the past, the play of
random stylistic allusion” (18). That means history is used not for
parodying or satirizing but it is used as a means of pastiche. Jameson
further explains this as:
Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique,
idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech
in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such
mimicry, without any of parody’s ulterior motives,
amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter and of
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any conviction that alongside the abnormal tongue you have
momentarily borrowed, some healthy linguistic normality
still exists. Pastiche is thus blank parody . . . (17)
Jameson argues that postmodern culture is not a creative culture
born out of originality, but it is an imitation of dead style of previous
culture; a culture of quotations born out of previous culture. As a result it
is a superficial and presents only surface image of history. The writer
simply uses history in his/her own perspective, which could not depict the
historical period in a depth. Indeed historical events are used to blend
together with present. To illustrate his idea, Jameson gives an example of
E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime (1975), a historical novel, which could not
present historical period in detail.
Further, the notion of presence of the past or what Jameson calls
‘historicism’ and the related concept of ‘pastiche’ is elaborated by Linda
Hutcheon. In her A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction
(1988),
she
describes
postmodernism
in
terms
of
“rethinking
modernism’s purist break with history. This is not a nostalgic return, it is
a critical revisiting, an ironic dialogue with the past of both art and
society, a recalling of a critically shared vocabulary” (4).
Like Jameson, Jean-Francois Lyotard also draws his assumption
about postmodernism by relating the term with the mental disorder but in
a positive way. His ideas of postmodernism are based on the philosophy
of a sociologist Daniel Bell. Bell argues that post-industrial,
computerized society is the fruit of the changed status of knowledge.
Lyotard accepts the concept of Bell to reject modernist’s idea that
knowledge is universal and applicable everywhere; instead according to
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him knowledge is partial or localized. He rejects the Enlightenment
philosophy of Kant, Hegel, Rousseau and Habermas that put forth an idea
of grand stories. Lyotard uses the term metanarrative for these grand
stories through which the modern religion, politics, philosophy and
science attempt to impose their idea of knowledge. He particularly
focuses on the scientific discourses and the role assigned to it by the
Enlightenment that is the liberation of humanity with the accumulation of
scientific knowledge. In this way science presents the universally
applicable knowledge and acquires the status of metanarrative – other
discourses perform the role of human liberation under these
metanarratives. Nicol explains this phenomenon as:
Metanarratives are a form of ideology which functions
violently to suppress and control the individual subject by
imposing a false sense of ‘totality’ and ‘universality’ on a set
of disparate things, actions, and events. A metanarrative is
like a literary narrative in that it is essentially a means of
ordering discrete elements in a particular form and thus
presenting a rhetorical case about the way things work or are
connected, which legitimates political positions and courses
of action. (11)
The idea of universality is aptly expressed in the modern fiction of
the writers like James Joyce and T. S. Eliot. For example James Joyce’s
Ulysses depicts the journey of Leopold Bloom in eighteen chapters with
the diversity of style, but at the end points to single grand narrative.
Lyotard argues that postmodernists do not believe the power of
metanarratives as they recognise its extravagant function. It has lost its
power of making truth for the liberation of humanity. Instead, they
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believe on the little narratives which present limited truth related with the
particular situation. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), for
example, is full of intertextual references, which initially highlights the
role of metanarrative, but at the end of the novel, points out little
narrative with the help of localized stories.
It has always been said that postmodernism is nihilist and often
rejects religion; however, the religious themes are still present in the
postmodernism. Though the postmodern sensibility is shaped by
Nietzsche’s concept of God and though it questions the role of grand
narratives or what Lyotard calls, ‘metanarratives’ and its certainties, it
also provides new grounds, where religion plays a vital role in the life of
human being. Nietzsche’s idea of God points out a particular notion
which suggests that the role of God as a ‘law-giver’ is ended in the
contemporary period where the objectivity is denied. According to him,
the concept of God as a sole creator and controller of the life of human
being is over and so the belief in God who provides the truth is, in
postmodern era, shattered. Francisco Mejia Uribe, while commenting on
Nietzsche’s idea of God, points out that:
From a postmodern perspective that has come to see man as
constant possibility of interpretation – as the object of a
never-ending exercise of redefinition – the belief in God as a
universal legislator is dissolved . . . Conceiving God as the
source of all truth contradicts the very core of the
postmodern perspective by reintroducing a hypothetical
foundation to our action, one that can only be seen now as a
foolish attempt to reestablish a metaphysical and unique
order. (Web)
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Uribe’s observations point to an era where the idea of God does not
exist. God is not the mediator between human being and the nature nor he
controls the life of human being; instead man is responsible for his fate.
However, it does not mean that religions are completely dissolved from
the society. The idea of ‘death of God’ does not mean that atheism is the
only one way of living a life but it points to an era where all other
possible and diverse ways of living a life are existed. In this regard, Uribe
points out that:
Religion is a possibility for the postmodern man, but it is a
transformed religion since it is always conceived as an
election of life, always conscious of being another way of
living among many others. The postmodern man can believe
in God, but it must be a belief that is always in line with the
idea that we are, above all, possibility of interpretation and
constant redefinition. (Web)
Postmodernism is a philosophical approach to the religion which
abolishes the conventional ideas of religion about the universal truth.
Rather postmodernism proposes an idea of new kind of religion by giving
privilege to the individual’s worldview. It acknowledges realities as
plural and subjective and traces on the various possible interpretations of
the truth which results in the rejection of the concept of metanarrative.
Thus, postmodern religion is shaped by the subjective ideas of the
individuals different perspectives of believing or looking at the world.
These different perspectives influence the social and cultural context and
provide the grounds for power relations into the society like class and
gender, which is in constant change. Such an instable structure of society
47
does not provide complete version of reality. The concept of ‘postmodern
religion’ reveals this instability to reject the objective realities of
institutional religion which grants the universal religious truths or laws.
Rather, it emphasizes the role of individual’s perception in shaping the
realities according to the socio-political, historical and cultural context.
The religious world of individual may inhabit various beliefs, rituals and
practices. Hence, it is worth to say that postmodern religion can be nondogmatic,
eclectic,
unification
of
different
religious
thoughts,
presentation of different faiths as well as tradition and the rejection of
traditional religious beliefs. Thus, postmodernism provides new grounds
to explore religion and religious concepts that include and respect the life
conditions of contemporary society. It seeks to give an understanding of
how these religious concepts are rooted in a postmodern society.
Postmodernism also begins to close the distinctions made by
modernism between various tendencies. Modernist culture was bourgeois
culture which proposes only the forms of high art that separates common
people from aristocrat. Postmodernism undermines this distinction and, as
Pillai
noted
while
investigating
Leslie
Fiedler’s
concerns
to
postmodernism, “has striven to close the gap between art and popular
entertainment, between high art and low, between elite culture and
popular culture by absorbing into its corpus elements of contemporary
popular culture, chiefly science-fiction, pornography and the Western”
(24). The distinction made between high culture and low culture, in
postmodern era, is vanished and it is now recognised as a culture of masssociety. As a result, in the contemporary period, the boundaries between
high culture and popular culture have melted and now the term popular
culture is applied to everything from the common culture which includes
48
film, music, television, folklore, crafts, mass media, youth culture, and
other forms of communication.
In his An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular
Culture (1993), Storey defines popular culture as the “residual category,
there to accommodate cultural texts and practices, which fail to meet the
required standards to qualify as high culture” (7). Storey’s definition of
the popular culture reveals its subordinate position which distinguishes it
from the high culture. In the postmodern period with the growing
influence of internet and electronic media, which has an ability to create
exact copy of everything existed in the world, the distinctions between
popular culture and high culture are blurred and all culture becomes the
part of postmodern culture.
Popular culture is constituted by the interaction between the
consumer and the consumption of various products. The industrial
production depends upon the everyday lives of people and their demands.
In this context Storey points out that popular culture can be called as “a
culture that only emerged following industrialization and urbanization”
without which the necessary resources would not be available (16). In
addition to this, an electronic media has encouraged people in
consumption of the commodities which results into the rapid
development of industries. Baudrillard’s examinations of this state of
society clearly points out that,
Consumption has been extended to all of culture; we are
witnessing the commodification of culture. This, in turn,
leads to one of the basic premises of postmodernism - the
49
erosion of the distinction between high and low culture. (The
Consumer Society 15)
Baudrillards observations put forth the tendency of postmodern
society where people are merely consumers and not producers. Further,
the term popular culture is applied to the set of ideas, perspectives,
attitudes, images etc. that guides the whole way of life. Its complex
nature is appropriately pointed out by John Fiske when he writes that pop
culture is
full of puns whose meanings multiply and escape the norms
of the social order and overflow their discipline; its excess
offers opportunities for parody, subversion, or inversion; it is
obvious and superficial, refusing to produce the deep,
complexly crafted texts that narrow down their audiences
and social meanings; it is tasteless and vulgar, for taste is
social control and class interest masquerading as a naturally
finer sensibility; it is shot through with contradictions, for
contradictions require the productivity of the reader to make
his or her sense out of them. (6)
Thus, in their attempt of rejecting modernist’s phenomenon,
postmodernists brought forward new kind of texts characterized by forms,
categories and contents that has been attacked by modernists. They focus
on the hybrid culture that is raised out of the mixture of low culture and
high culture with primary emphasis on low culture which was always
humiliated by modernist. These cultural changes are essentially results of
rapid developments into the fields of science and technology that has
created the world into a single homogeneity.
50
The postmodern era is characterized by the advancement in
technology and media that enormously affected the society. Gregson
clearly registers the emergence and development of media when he writes
that the “media has had considerable effect on ―social experience and
cultural perception” (2). The rise and expansion of technology and the
cut-throat competition amongst multinational organizations is the key
factor behind the spread of consumerism. Larry McCaffrey, in his
Introduction, Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and
Postmodern Science Fiction (1991), while observing the ever-changing
pattern of the society, says that the exchange of information is the most
important resource for this consumerism and not actual materials and
products. According to him postmodern society is saturated with the
products such as medical supplies, weaponry and consumer goods such as
mobile phones, computers, plasma screen TVs etc. But information and
technology are even more important as they are, what he calls, “the rapid
proliferation of technologically mass-produced ‘products’ that are
essentially reproductions or abstractions – images, advertising,
information, memories, styles, simulated experiences” (4). Thus, it acts as
a mediator between goods and consumer by using other resources such as
televisions, computers and digital music.
The influence of science and technology, explosion of knowledge
coupled with radical socio-cultural changes, and indeterminacy in the
established values has altered every field of human endeavour. The
literature produced under these influences is a collage of different
philosophical ideologies which on many occasions contradict itself. In the
light of above discussion certain features of postmodernism are enlisted
further to illustrate the term.
51
1.3.2 Major Features of Postmodernism in the Philosophical
Premises:
Postmodern theorists think that there is no absolute truth; rather a
notion of truth is a contrived by illusion. They believe that the concept of
truth is misused by the people, especially by the particular group, in order
to gain power over others. In fact, they say, truths are merely human
products and not metaphysical concepts. Truths are the individual’s
subjective judgements so it must correlates to the individual’s beliefs and
not with the universality. In this regard Grenz rightly points out that
“Truth is established neither by the correspondence of an assertion with
objective reality nor by the internal coherence of the assertions
themselves” (6).
Postmodernists claim that truth and error are synonymous because,
for them, facts are too limited to determine anything. They think that facts
can be changed in the course of time. So today’s fact may be tomorrow’s
false. This constantly changing structure of truth lead them to believe the
world outside of themselves as being in error and other people’s truths
become indistinguishable from error. Therefore, no one has an authority
to define truth or impose upon others his ideas of right and wrong. This
contemporary philosophical thought is well expressed by Foucault, when
he opines that, “It is meaningless to speak in the name of – or against –
Reason, Truth, or Knowledge” (Miller 2).
Postmodernists
emphasise
self-conceptualization
and
rationalization and reject the traditional logic and objectivity. They reject
the scientific notion of accepting facts and give preference to opinions.
They believe in the rational approach towards life and suspect global
cultural narrative or metanarrative. For them traditional authority is false
52
and corrupt, so they do not accept the restrictions imposed by the
religious morals and secular authority. They believe that all religions are
valid. Therefore, they give value to the faith of each person over his
religion. Because of this a new religious belief is emerging which
denounces Christianity or traditional establishment, institutional objective
presuppositions and gives the voice to their own creations.
Postmodernists are disillusioned with modernist’s notions and
think that their principles are inadequate to formulate absolute grounds.
As a result they depart from the modernism and break new grounds. They
subvert modernist’s effort of providing grounds in the form of grand
narratives and point out fragmentation, discontinuity and chaos of the
contemporary period.
Postmodernists believe that morality is related with an individual
so it must be a personal opinion. They think that morality is each person’s
private code of ethics. So it is not necessary to follow traditional values
and rules. They propose liberal ethics and defend the cause of feminists
and homosexuals. They also attack on the classifications such as malefemale, white-black, and imperial-colonial.
Many postmodernists claim that national boundaries are a
hindrance
to
human
communication.
Therefore,
they
propose
internationalism by advocating unity of separate countries. They are proenvironmentalists so they blame Western society for the destruction of
earth. They give an importance to the ‘Mother Earth’ and say that it is
necessary to save earth from the disastrous destruction. The philosophical
phenomenon of the contemporary period makes the postmodern
53
phenomenon more explicit in bringing out the socio-cultural, economic
and political situations of the period that cultivated this sensibility.
1.4.1 Postmodern European Literature:
The term postmodern literature is often applied to the literature that
is influenced by and produced as a response to the socio-economic and
cultural changes occurred after World War II. The writers who write in
this period are commonly supposed as postmodernists. Their works share
some common characteristics of the period such as paradox, questionable
narrators, metanarrative, pastiche etc. Unlike modernists’ quest for
meaning in this chaotic world, postmodernists avoid the possibility of
meaning. Such a feature creates the parody in their work. They employ
metafiction to sustain the narrative authority of the author. They write
fiction about the fiction. The distinction between high and low culture is
also attacked with the employment of pastiche. They employ the free play
of structure into the narrative. It is not possible to take a survey of each
and every author from the postmodern literary period. Therefore, some
prominent novelists are reviewed here to highlight the characteristics of
postmodern literature.
During the post war period, several movements like Absurdism, the
Beat Generation, and the Magic Realism are emerged as a result of socioeconomic milieu. Many writers from various sectors write in response to
the contemporary condition. Among them the works of Samuel Beckett
are often seen as marking a shift from modernism to postmodernism. He
is closely related with modernism because of his friendship with James
Joyce, on the other hand his works helped to shape the development of
literature away from modernism. He has experimented with the narrative
54
form in his fiction to depict the characters who are trapped in an
inescapable situations of life and helplessly try to escape from that chaos.
Following Beckett, William Burroughs (1914-1997) is considered
to be one of the most culturally influential and innovative postmodern
novelists. His novel like Junkie (1953), Naked Lunch (1959) and The
Yage Letters (1963) depict the characteristics of postmodern fiction. They
are constructed with no central narrative. They employ pastiche to fold in
elements from popular genres such as detective fiction and science
fiction. Burroughs interweaves the elements in such a way that creates
parody, paradox, and playfulness in the novels. He ridicules at the moral,
political and economic systems of America. With Brion Gysin, he has
also popularized the literary cut-up technique in the works that are
included in The Nova Trilogy (1961-64). Like Burroughs, William
Gaddis (1922-1998) is another important figure in the postmodern
literature. He invents new structure and style that makes his novels more
complex to read. His novels J R (1975) and A Frolic of His Own (1994)
are written in the dialogue form without much scene description. Such
kind of narrative technique creates confusion within the text. He uses
extensive literary and cultural allusions and creates complexity into the
narrative. His mocking view at the world is reflected in his novels such as
Carpenter’s Gothic (1985).
Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984) is another notable novelist of
postmodern period. His novels like School for Sin (1960) and Cain’s
Book (1960) explore heroin addiction of its characters along with the
detailed descriptions of sex and drug uses. His text Invisible Insurrection
of a Million Minds (1991) proposes an international spontaneous
university as a cultural force and marks the beginning of his movement
55
towards his sigma project. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is also a
prominent figure whose works are the mixture of satire, gallows, humour,
and science fiction. He has continuously experimented with the structure
and form in his novels. His first dystopian novel, Player Piano (1952),
explores the machine age where human workers have been largely
replaced by machines. Deadeye Dick (1982) explores themes of social
alienation. Breakfast of Champions (1973) depicts many rough
illustrations and lengthy non-sequiturs. Many of his novels explore
science fiction themes with wild leaps of imagination and a deep
cynicism. They are the portrayal of the society which is hostile and
indifferent.
John Barth (b. 1930) is the most popular postmodern novelist who
is best known for his metafiction. His works like The Floating Opera
(1956) and The End of the Road (1958) explore the controversial aspects
like suicide and abortion. They are loosely structured, with digressions,
distractions, stories within stories. He uses parody as a central device to
unfold the self-consciousness of the characters. Donald Barthelme (19311989) is one of the famous postmodern novelists. His fiction portrays the
compact incidents of life with less emphasis on the narrative. He cuts the
tales with illustrations and attaches them with ironic captions. He avoids
traditional plot structures and plays with the meaning of the words. His
fiction continues the investigations of consciousness which leads him to
the experiments in expression. These characteristics of his fiction place
him into the postmodern authors. E. L. Doctorow (b. 1931) is award
winning postmodern writer whose works explore the harsher realities of
Cold War. The Book of Daniel (1971), World’s Fair (1985), Billy
Bathgate (1989) and The March (2005) are the portrait of contemporary
life in the chaotic situations.
56
Influenced by abstract expressionism, foreign films and Jazz, Don
DeLillo (b. 1936) is another significant writer who writes on various
subjects like nuclear annihilation, complexities of language, Cold War,
advent of the digital age, and global terrorism. Many of his novels satirize
the modern world. They explore the themes of underground conspiracies,
disintegration and re-integration of families, and the promise of rebirth
through violence. His novels like Players (1977), Mao II (1991), and
Falling Man (2007) depict the theme of terrorism. The novels like
Underworld (1997) depict psychology of crowd and the surrender of
individual identity to group. Jerzy Kosinski (1933–1991), a prominent
postmodern novelist, throws light on the war and its effects over the life
of the people. His novel The Painted Bird (1965) depicts the story of a
boy who wanders around unidentified areas in search of refuge during the
World War II. He satirizes America’s media culture in his novel Being
There (1971). Almost all his works are defragmentery that shows an
influence of Kafka on him.
Robert Coover (1932) is a notable postmodern writer whose works
are centred on the fabulation and metafiction. His novel The Origin of the
Brunists (1966) depicts the story of mine disaster and religious cult. The
Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop (1968) is
centred on the role of creator. The Public Burning (1977) deals with the
magic realism. Another influential writer of postmodern period is Thomas
Pynchon (b. 1937). His works explore philosophical, theological, and
sociological ideas in quirky and approachable ways. He emphasizes
racism, imperialism and high culture in his works to investigate the role
of psychology, sociology, mathematics, science and technology. His first
novel V (1963) contains excessive references of science and technology
and of obscure historical events. The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) parodies
57
Jacobean revenge drama by depicting corporate conspiracy of the World
War II. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) is an intricate and allusive work that
deals with the themes like paranoia, racism, colonialism, conspiracy,
synchronicity, and entropy. Vineland (1990) deals with the strong sociopolitical events of the period whereas Against the Day (2006) condemns
capitalism.
Paul Auster (b. 1947) is another notable figure whose works are the
mixture of absurdism, existentialism and crime fiction. His novels like
The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance
(1990), The Book of Illusions (2002) and The Brooklyn Follies (2005)
explore the search for identity and personal meaning. His protagonists are
always in search of their own identities who at last fail to cope up with
the society. Such a threat of postmodern world is explored in almost all
his works. Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952) is an important
postmodern writer whose novels like My Name is Red (2000) are the
mixture of mystery and romance that depict the tension between east and
west.
Besides, there are many other writers who write during the
postmodern period. Their works are influenced by the socio-economic
upheavals of the period. They all share certain common characteristics of
the period. Some of these characteristics are pinpointed here in order to
articulate more elaborate structure of the postmodern literature.
1.4.2 General Characteristics of Postmodern Fiction:
One of the significant characteristics of the postmodern fiction is a
‘metafiction,’ which is used to create a fiction within fiction or to
intensify the artificiality of the art. The narrative technique of metafiction
58
usually involves irony and is self-reflective. Writers always employ the
technique of metafiction to keep hold over the narrative structure of the
text. They unexpectedly shift the narrative of the story to achieve an
emotional distance or to comment on the act of storytelling. Italo
Calvino’s novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979), for instance, is
about a reader attempting to read a novel of the same name. The other
examples are John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse (1968), Robert Coover’s
The Babysitter (1969), Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969),
Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and William H. Gass’s
Willie Master’s Lonesome Wife (1968).
The narrative technique of ‘metafiction’ is always aimed to gain a
literary motif of irony. Irony is a central device that postmodern authors
usually use to treat serious subject comically. Writers like Vonnegut and
Pynchon depict the serious events of World War II in a comic manner.
These novelists name their characters by the names of the political and
historical figures, philosophers, actors in order to mock their ideologies.
For instance, Salaman Rushdie in his novel The Midnight’s Children uses
the political leaders of India as his characters and fictionalizes the history
of Indian Freedom Fighting.
Another significant feature of the postmodern fiction is
‘intertextuality’, which is used to refer to the works which are shaped by
the meanings of other texts. As the postmodern authors deny to follow the
traditional narrative modes, they explore their novels as a collage of the
references of different works which on the whole signifies a different
message. Postmodern authors borrow or transform the themes of a prior
text instead of inventing something new. But these old structures and
thematic concerns are used here in the postmodern socio-cultural space
59
which signifies differently. This difference is in fact a message of the text
which is explored by displacing other works in a different literary
context. Kathy Acker’s Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream is a classic
example intertextuality which takes references of Cervante’s Don
Quixote, a medieval romance. Other examples of intertextuality in
postmodern literature are John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor (1960),
Robert Coover’s Pinocchio in Venice (1991) and Umberto Eco’s The
Name of the Rose (1985).
The intertextuality is followed by the narrative technique of
‘Pastiche’. It is used to combine together various elements of the literary
works and create a new narrative space to explore the uneven realities of
the contemporary world. Postmodern writers use this technique without
any impulse of parodying the style of past writers. On the other hand, it is
used to represent the confused state of society and its pluralistic form.
The postmodern narratives are constituted by combining various genres.
William S. Burroughs narrates his stories by combining science fiction
with the features of detective fiction. Thomas Pynchon constitutes his
narrative by using the elements of detective fiction, science fiction, and
war fiction.
‘Black humour’ is a prominently used by some of the postmodern
writers like Roald Dahl, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren
Zevon, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth. In black humour the laughter
arises from cynicism and scepticism. The horrific events are portrayed
humorously. The postmodern writers portray the themes of murder,
suicide, depression, war, barbarism, drug abuse, terminal illness,
domestic violence, sexual violence, insanity, nightmare, disease, racism
etc. often in a comical manner.
60
‘Fabulation’ is another trait of postmodern fiction in which the
writers reject the notion that the literary works are the creation of reality
and trace that such works are not bound to reality. According to them the
literary works are the creation of imagination and does not necessarily
relate with real life. They use the term ‘fabulation’ to such a creation of
works. They challenge the traditional structure of work or the role of
narrator. They experiment with subject matter, form, style and temporal
sequence. Their fusion of everyday, fantastic, mythical, and nightmarish
world blurs the traditional distinctions between serious or trivial, horrible
or ludicrous, tragic or comic. They employ the element of fantasy or
science fiction to narrate the story.
‘Poioumena’ is a term used to refer to a postmodern fiction that
depicts the story of its creation. To create such a story writer often
employ a narrative scheme in which a character writes the story of the
novel. Many writers like Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire), Salman Rushdie
(Midnight’s Children), Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook), John
Fowles (Mantissa), William Golding (Paper Men), and Gilbert Sorrentino
(Mulligan Stew) used this device to add the sense of artificiality to their
novels.
Postmodern authors as they use the devices like pastiche and
intertextuality, they always require a frame to displace it in different
context. These frames were always either from the known history or from
the contemporary politics. This kind of narration which uses historical
events to signify something contemporary is defined as ‘Historiographic
metafiction’. This is one of the shared techniques by the postmodern
authors in which they refer to events and personages of historical
importance. Such works are always based upon textual play, parody and
61
historical re-conceptualization. For example Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s
Parrot gives references of Gustave Flaubert. E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
(1975) refers to the historical figures like Henry Ford, Booker T.
Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung. Rabih Alameddine’s Koolaids:
The Art of War makes references to the Lebanese Civil War and various
real life political figures. Thomas Pynchon’s Mason and Dixon gives
references of George Washington. John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s
Woman deals with the Victorian Period.
As the postmodern authors were using the historical events as the
central frame of their narrative they cannot follow the liner narrative
scheme and therefore explore it in a fragmented manner. Therefore
‘Fragmentation and non-liner narrative’ is defined as a central device of
postmodern fiction. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969) is a
best example of such a fragmented structure and non-liner narrative.
Robert Coover’s Pricksongs & Descants (1969) presents the occurrence
of various events at a time which creates fragmented structure of the
narrative.
Though the postmodern authors use all these narrative devices the
postmodern novels maintain the playfulness in the narration. The writers
of the period often treat serious subjects in a playful manner. Writers like
Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut address the serious events of World
War II in a playful manner. Thomas Pynchon’s works are the best
examples of playfulness where the elements of silly wordplay are found
within a serious context.
The postmodern authors use one more important technique of
‘Magic realism’. As these novels amalgamate the historical events with
62
the contemporary situations, place the past political personalities in the
present scenario and mix the features of different genres in a single
literary structure, they have to face the difficulties to cope with all these
different varied terminologies. In order to incorporate all these things
under a single title they have blend the real world with the world of
fantasy, dream and unconscious psyches of the characters and for that
they uses the magical solutions which are impossible to prove on the
ground of rationality. These magical elements are presented in such a
manner that they seem as a real. Postmodern writers often juxtapose their
stories with reality and fantasy. By skilfully shifting the time, they use
dreams, myth and fairy tales in their plots. They express the events of
abrupt shock with horror and the inexplicable. Gabriel Marquez’s novel
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a famous example of magic realism.
Salman Rushdie, Italo Calvino, and Gunter Grass are some of the
postmodern writers who have employed the technique of magical realism
in their works.
The role of ‘technoculture’ in the postmodern society and its
reflection is another prominent characteristic of fiction written during the
postmodern period. The literature of the period depicts altered socioeconomic and political situations in the postmodern age in which every
sphere of human life is influenced by science and technology. The impact
of technology over human life is focused by many postmodern writers.
Their works depict the human life and its interaction between technology
and culture. For example Don DeLillo’s White Noise presents affected
life of man due to the radical inventions in the field of science and
gradually increasing influence of technological creations. William
Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Alan Moore and James Blaylock also present
the deceased psyche of the contemporary man as an effect of technology.
63
The technological developments transformed the postmodern
society into codes and digits that leads them to feel hyperreal. This
exploration of ‘hyperreality’ is an important feature of the postmodern
fiction which describes a hypothetical inability of consciousness to
distinguish reality from fantasy due to the technologically advances. In
this age of technology everything seems to be chaotic. Life becomes a
mechanical routine devoid of any specific purpose or aim. This
purposelessness shakes the solid ground of reason and blows the leaf of
faith and makes man to search something new which has a potential to
add the significance to his existence. This condition of postmodern man is
depicted in the postmodern fiction. The writers of the period depict that
the real life is replaced by the imitation. Notable writers of the period like
William Gibson and Neal Stephenson focus on the hyperreality of the
period.
‘Paranoia’ is a one more attitude shared by the postmodern authors.
This is a psychological disorder which generates an abnormal suspicion
and mistrust. In the postmodern world where everything is under a great
change and every established value is under reconsideration, the creative
minds were affected by the paranoia, which emerges as a major thematic
thread of the contemporary literature. They reject the belief that there is a
supernatural system beneath the chaos of the world and in their literature
points out that there is no ordering system administrating the world. So, it
is useless to search for such ordering system. This feature is depicted in
the fiction of Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), and Kurt
Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions).
‘Maximalism’ is a term used to the literary works which reflect
digression, reference and elaboration of other literary works. According
64
to some critics such maximalism creates disorganized and sterile structure
of the text. However, maximalism is successfully used by the writers like
Thomas Pynchon (Mason & Dixon), James Chapman (Stet), and David
Foster Wallace’s (Infinite Jest).
As postmodernism maintains two contradictory ideas in a single
context, the postmodern literature also uses two fundamentally opposite
ideas in a single literary work. It is seen that postmodern novels digress
from the central thematic concern of the novel and aimlessly explores
different, unending and infinite issues without any significance with the
core narrative of the novel. On many occasions it is also observed that
these authors are also using the minimalistic style in which they represent
the main theme without any digression. The works are exposed to its
most fundamental features. Surface descriptions are given so that the
reader may actively participate in the story. The characters are always
unexceptional who cast their role throughout the story. Authors avoid
unnecessary information, meaningless details, adjectives and adverbs and
only exact description is given. Such minimalism can be found in the
works of Samuel Beckett, John Barth, Robert Coover, and William H.
Gass.
Thus, all these features help to comprehend the postmodern literary
tradition. It is marked by many contradictory ideas, as these novels use
the complex structure by using the narrative techniques like pastiche,
irony, metafiction, intertextuality, paranoia, maximalism and minimalism
and voices the harsher realities of modern life. These novels are not
meant for the purpose of entertainment or not formed to transmit a
didactic message but it is an intellectual discourse aimed to reveal the
philosophical problems of the present period.
65
1.5 Postmodern Canadian Literature: A brief Review:
In the light of above theoretical framework and conceptualization
of postmodernism, it is essential here to take a brief review of
postmodern perspective in Canadian Literature. This brief review will
enhance the knowledge about Canadian point of view and their literary
response to the postmodern phenomenon.
A chronological overview of Canadian literature reveals its
development and the shifting paradigms from the beginning to the
present. Initially it was an “imitation or emulation of metropolitan norms,
then a configuration or shift towards assimilation, and finally – in a desire
to forge a distinctive national culture – a reconfiguration or revaluation of
that which had been considered marginal” (Kroller 155). The Canadian
literature in postmodern period begins to re-evaluate its own literary
tradition in the changed context of globalization.
The period of postmodernism in Canadian literature is often
juxtaposed with post-colonialism, multiculturalism and feminism. It is the
period of transformation for Canadians, as they were in the process of
decolonization, where the primary emphasis is laid on the dismantling of
the dominant European codes. The trend of postmodernism helped them
in this process of decolonization. Like other post-colonial countries, they
utilized the lessons of postmodernism for their own liberation. They
begin to invent new forms and techniques in order to change the dismal
situation
of
subordination.
They
involve
themselves
into
the
indispensable task of establishing new and independent identity of
Canadian literature. Hence, they return to the pre-colonial cultural reality
to present original Canadian culture but soon realise the impossibility of
recovering pre-colonial cultural reality after colonization which has
66
created mixed cultures in Canada. Consequently, they turn to
postmodernism as a suitable way to cast off identity clichés imposed on
them.
Many writers of the postmodern Canadian period explore the
national characteristics of Canada. They take a leap in ideology to
understand their own cultural history. For them rereading and rewriting of
Canadian past has become an inescapable and vital task. Their literary
works represent varied themes, creative expressions and diversity, which
are emerged from the past. Their works reflect the experiences of Canada
as a colony and reveal their fear of cultural colonialism. They use
historical narrative to reconstruct and transform their colonized history.
The number of Canadian writers tried their hands on varied issues
of national importance like education, philosophy, social phenomena,
feminism, old age problems, immigrant life, history, war, science fiction,
psychological trauma, satires and humours, absurdity and terror, regional
customs and so on. The prominent figures of the period include
Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood,
Matt Cohen, Rudy Wiebe, Austin Clarke, Leonard Cohen, Michael
Ondaatje, Timothy Findley, Carol Shields and Robert Kroetsch. All these
writers enriched the cultural heritage of the country by moving back to
the national history in order to rediscover historical myths with
experimentation in form and style.
The prominent figure of the postmodern Canadian literature is
Robertson Davies (1913-1995), who is well-known novelist, playwright
and critic. His fiction explores the topics of doubling, disguise, irony,
paradox, and dwelling in gaps in between. His early novels Tempest-Tost
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(1951), Leaven of Malice (1954) and A Mixture of Frailties (1958),
known as The Salterton Trilogy, depict the cultural life of Canada and
various problems relating to identity which he experienced there. His
second trilogy The Deptford Trilogy includes the novels of 1970s like
Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders
(1975), which deal with the issues of myth, magic and Jungian analysis.
During the period of 1980s and 1990s, he wrote five novels which form
his two trilogies The Cornish Trilogy and The Toronto Trilogy
subsequently. The Cornish Trilogy includes The Rebel Angels (1981),
What’s Bred in the Bone (1985) and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988) and The
Toronto Trilogy includes Murther and Walking Spirits (1991) and The
Cunning Man (1994), where he satirize the academic life with an
emphasis on the events that are beyond ordinary human experiences.
Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) is another prominent yet often
misplaced writer of Postmodern Canadian literature as her works are
always described with the conventions of realist tradition. But on the
contrary, she exposes the traditional conventions of realism by analysing
its effect over the material causes that structure the reality. Her early
novels like This Side Jordan (1960) and The Stone Angel (1964) explore
her concern for being a white person in a colonial state with the sense of
disinheritance and changing role of women in the society. In A Jest of
God (1966), The Fire-Dwellers (1969) and The Diviners (1974) she
rejects and deconstructs the Oedipus complex or what is called as a
metanarrative and proposes alternatives to its propositions from the
female perspective.
However, in real sense Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011) is the first
and foremost writer who introduced postmodernism in Canadian literary
68
realm with the explorations of new themes and techniques. In his
investigations of Canadian postmodern sensibility, Walter Pache
identifies Robert Kroetsch’s central role “to liberate the postmodern
debate in Canada . . . and turn it into a productive force” (67). Echoing
the statements of Pache, Linda Hutcheon further adds that “in many ways
it is probably redundant to call Robert Kroetsch a postmodernist; he is Mr
Canadian Postmodern” (The Canadian Postmodern 160). His novels
explore the issues of Canadian identity by highlighting the aspects of self,
region, gender, genre, and nation. Rather his novels are sceptical in nature
that captures the politics of particular regional and cultural issues to a
greater extent. He experiments with the style and uses mythical elements
in his novels to blend with contemporary issues that create his unique
style of pastiche. His first two novels But We Are Exiles (1965) and The
Words of My Roaring (1966) explore the struggle between older and
younger generation where the younger generation rejects the authority of
their older generation. The Studhorse Man (1969) reveals the ways of
dealing with the cultural realities, its history and the landscape of
Canadian West with frequent digressions and missing portions that
foreground narrative unreliability. Gone Indian (1973) deals with the
confrontation of its protagonist Jeremy Sadness with the world where he
finds the threats of transforming his identity as a result of exchange of
suitcase in journey. Badlands (1975) unfolds the story of male quest for
origin from the female perspective that ironically exposes male
adventures. What the Crow Said (1978) blends together the elements
from the Greek mythology to unfold the story of a young woman who is
impregnated by the swarm of bees. Alibi (1983) and The Puppeteer
(1992) both explore the questions of identity in socio-economic
upheavals of Hitchcock, whereas The Man from the Creeks (1998)
69
unfolds the tale of golden rush in the north that offers a new and unique
vision of Canada. Almost all novels of Kroetsch suggest the need for new
forms and conventions in order to explore the fictional practices more
elaborately.
Timothy Findley (1930-2002) is the most influential writer of
postmodern Canadian literature whose novels are categorized in various
genres including fantasy, mystery and speculative fiction. Findley
succeeds in exploring the issues related with mental illness, gender and
sexuality by throwing light on the dark personal secrets of human psyche
and its conflicts. He uses traditionally conceived notions of history and
genre to explore the lives of people who are susceptible to the powers of
mainstream institutions. His novel The Butterfly Plague (1969) is a
metafictional work that foregrounds the conventions of realism to focus
the self-consciousness of the protagonist. The Wars (1977) is set during
the period of World War I and explores the trauma of social and
individual life because of the destruction of the total generation born
between 1914 and 1918. Famous Last Words (1981) is a historiographic
metafiction that presents the tension between brutality and elitism,
between aestheticism and fascism. Similar to it, Not Wanted on the
Voyage (1984) blends history with the contemporary issues by utilizing
another postmodern technique of intertextuality by adopting the narrative
modes of stream of consciousness. His other novels including The Telling
of Lies (1986), Headhunter (1993), The Piano Man’s Daughter (1995),
You Went Away (1996), Pilgrim (1999) and Spadework (2001) are also
the metafictional works that deal with the issues of psychiatry, religion,
mental illness and violence in the chaotic socio-political and economic
situations.
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Leonard Cohen (1934) who is placed into the postmodern literary
realm of Canada with the publication of his second novel Beautiful
Losers (1966), which is called as one of the first postmodern Canadian
novels. The novel focuses on the mystical story of Mohawk Catholic saint
Kateri Tekakwitha and his struggle and self-abandonment. While
examining the elements of postmodernism in the novel, Linda Hutcheon
emphasises that the “text refers to itself as a text,” and further places
Leonard Cohen into the early postmodernists (The Canadian Postmodern
29). Many of Cohen’s novels deal with the themes of depression, suicide,
religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships.
Rudy Wiebe (1934) is a notable and award winning author of
postmodern Canadian literature who has challenged modernist realist
tradition. She uses the conventions of realism to create postmodern
historical novels in which everything is under doubt. Her novel The
Scorched-wood People (1977) is based on the resistance and rebellion of
the Métis and their ambivalent leader Louis Riel. A Discovery of
Strangers (1994) depicts Franklin’s disastrous search for the Northwest
Passage. Both these novels are rich in evocating scepticism towards
conventional accounts of history. Her novels including Peace Shall
Destroy Many (1962), First and Vital Candle (1966), The Blue Mountains
of China (1970), The Temptations of Big Bear (1973), The Mad Trapper
(1980), My Lovely Enemy (1983), and Sweeter Than All the World (2001)
deal with the current ontological questions of history, fiction and myth.
Joy Kogawa’s (1935) novels
suggest
the
incredulity
of
matanarrative by giving privilege to the subjective knowledge of human
being. Her semi-autobiographical novel Obasan (1981) describes Asian
Canadian experiences. Itsuka (1992) and The Rain Ascends (1995) offer
71
the concepts of subjectivity, especially in terms of knowledge and values
that gives preference to the indigenous experiences and rationalized
perspectives.
Margaret Atwood (1939) is one of the most fascinating, versatile
and prolific postmodern authors who explores the elements of
postmodernism from the post-feminist perspective. Most of her works
focus on the tendency of dismantling patriarchal system that undermines
the position of women into the society. Her novel The Edible Woman
(1969) is a comic social satire written in metaphorical language that
depicts the funny and terrifying story of a young woman who works for a
consumer company. It explores the theme of women’s place in the male
dominated society. Her second novel Surfacing (1972) depicts man’s
imposition on woman in matters of profession, marriage and motherhood.
It throws light on the struggle of a woman to escape from the patriarchal
society. Lady Oracle (1976) is a gothic romance that shows how identity
and individuality of a woman writer is destroyed by the invisible
authority of male writers. It is a feminist’s attack on the dominant pattern
of gender relations in contemporary society. A domestic novel Life
Before Man (1979) deals with the politics of power in interpersonal
relationship between wife and husband. It throws light on the collapse of
the modern marriage institution. The process of self discovery against the
cruelty is depicted in Bodily Harm (1981). It focuses on the contrast
between affluent thinking and the brutal reality of power and sexual
politics. The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) depicts the image of a woman
where she is prized only for her reproductive gift. It focuses on the quest
of a woman for a meaningful identity. Cat’s Eye (1988) deals with the
interaction between adulthood and childhood and exposes male
prejudices against women’s creativity and talent. It shows how art can be
72
used as a weapon against tyranny in all its manifestations. Alias Grace
(1996) unfolds the crucial issues like the idea of unified subject, the
nature of truth and relations of power. An extraordinary and compelling
story of two sisters is depicted in The Blind Assassin (2000). Their secrets
are exposed with the historical colour. Oryx and Crake (2003) is a vision
of mankind’s uncompromisingly black future. It focuses on the current
social and economic developments in the technological world. The Year
of the Flood (2009) is a dystopian novel that depicts how a pandemic
disease killed almost all humanity except two persons Toby and Ren. The
flashback technique is used to unfold the events of their lives and
survival. Thus, Margaret Atwood is one of the foremost Canadian writers
who succeed in exploring the postmodern sensibility in her experimental
narrative technique through the employment of female characters as a
protagonist, most of the time offering multiple endings of the story.
Another significant writer who emerged during the postmodern
period in Canadian literature is Wayson Choy (1939) whose novels are
marked by the popular culture of the contemporary period. His novels
The Jade Peony (1995) and All That Matters (2004) are centred on the
life of the characters who are trapped in hybrid and decentred culture,
where they try to discover their roots from which they belong. The
Chinese Canadian characters of his novels attempt to project the image of
mainstream Canadian culture in order to escape the impositions of the
dominant culture.
Michael Ondaatje (1943) is one of the most influential figures of
postmodern Canadian literature whose novels explore the elements of
magic realism, intertextuality and a poetic perspective in a self-conscious
and playful language. The characters of his novels are entrapped in the
73
chaotic circumstances of the weird culture where they experience the ever
growing sufferings in life because of their feeling of rootlessness. In the
Skin of a Lion (1987) is a fictional story constructed with different stories
within one story that reveals the life of early emigrants settled in Toronto,
who are suffering with the questions of identity. Different characters from
the various fragmented stories are pulled together at the end of the novel
that provides the unity of narrative. The English Patient (1992) presents
the sense of ambiguity coupled with the vague ideas of truth and identity.
Anil’s Ghost (2000) presents the East-West opposition through the story
of Anil and Sarath in the chaotic and uncertain environment juxtaposed
with the theme of crime.
David Adams Richards (1950) is another prominent figure in the
postmodern Canadian literature whose works are marked by the
polemical qualities due to their closeness to the traditional realistic
aesthetics but at the same time project the postmodern sensibility through
scepticism towards assumed conventions of the society that invite readers
to perform the creative role in the construction of the text. Throughout his
novels, Richards is busy in re-evaluating some of the traditional concepts
such as sacrifice, moral action and the role of grand narratives. His novels
depict the protagonists who are socially disliked because of their moral
conflicts and are the targets of satire because of their self-conscious, selfserving and arrogant nature in the society. His novels including Lives of
Short Duration (1981), Nights Below Station Street (1988), Evening Snow
Will Bring Such Peace (1990), For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down
(1993), Hope in the Desperate Hour (1996), The Bay of Love and
Sorrows (1998), River of the Broken-Hearted (2004), The Friends of
Meager Fortune (2006) and The Lost Highway (2007) are marked by the
74
use of postmodern innovations that rejects the traditional conventions of
the society and the genre novel.
Guy Vanderhaeghe (1951) acutely presents the postmodern
approach in his novels. His famous historical novel The Englishman’s
Boy (1996) depicts the history of the Cypress Hills massacre from the
postmodern point of view. The novel brings together and juxtaposes
several broad currents of thoughts from the historical accounts that create
the patterns of complications within the novel. His next novel The Last
Crossing (2002) is the projection of homosexuality and gender-crossing
and socio-cultural reactions to it in somewhat ambivalent and
indeterminate postmodern era.
Like Vanderhaeghe, Wayne Johnston (1958) is known for his
historical setting in the postmodern Canadian literary realm. His fiction
deals primarily with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. His
novel The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1998) is a portrayal of
legendary Newfoundland politician Joey Smallwood. The Navigator of
New York (2002) is postmodern historic novel that deals with the journey
of John Franklin and the race for the north pole of Frederick Cook.
Leon Rooke (1934) is famous for his postmodern novels like Fat
Woman (1980), Shakespeare’s Dog (1983) and A Good Baby (1989) as he
receives a most critical acclaim for their innovative language,
experimental form and different characters with distinctive voices.
Katherine Govier (1948) explores the relationship between human
being and their environment with the complex interaction of real places
and fictional characters. Her novels like Hearts of Flame (1991) and
Truth Teller (2000) depict the socio-political environment of the
75
contemporary period. The novel was followed by Creation (2002) which
is a fictional voyage of a historical figure. His contemporary Ann-Marie
MacDonald (1958) explores postmodern themes and utilizes the
postmodern techniques in his novels Fall on Your Knees (1996) and The
Way the Crow Flies (2003). Anne Michaels (1958) is another emerging
voice in the postmodern Canadian literature whose two novels explore the
tension between private and public life. Her novel Fugitive Pieces (1996)
depicts the impact of Holocaust on the individual life and the possibilities
of love and faith after the Holocaust. The Winter Vault (2008) depicts the
impact of large engineering projects on the society as well as on the
environment.
Kerri Sakamoto (1960), a postmodern Canadian author, brilliantly
mixes political and historical elements in her novels. Her best known
novel The Electrical Field (1998) explores the murder and domestic
violence which is aroused out of anger and betrayal towards the
contemporary political situations.
Russell Smith (1963), another contemporary of Sakamoto, explores
the issues of sexual conventions of young people as well as the treatment
of society to the mixed races in Canada. His novels like How Insensitive
(1994), Noise (1998) are satirical in nature that presents norms and
morality of city life comically. Diana: A Diary in the Second Person
(2003) depicts the pornography of the modern city. Similar to Smith,
Lynn Coady (1970) projects the deep understanding of complexities of
human nature in his novels such as Strange Heaven (1998), Play the
Monster Blind (2000). His Saints of Big Harbour (2002) is an excellent
coming of age novel which is set in Cape Breton that tries to unravel the
deeper issues regarding human life in a comic manner.
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Besides, there are many new and emerging voices in postmodern
Canada, who are involved in developing Canadian literature with vigour
and vitality in both quantity and quality. In the process of decolonization,
Canadians reject the imposed cultural codes of imperialism but at the
same time cannot even cope with the pre-colonial culture of Canada. The
explosion of migrants, industrial developments and the foreign policies of
nation ignite a quest for new identity which is different from
Americanism. These creative writers find the solution on this sociocultural problem in the adaptation of postmodern narrative modes which
allows them to explore the realities of new nation.
Thus, the Canadian postmodern writers successfully explore altered
socio-political, economic situations in the shattered cultural context.
Their literary endeavours depict the contemporary sensibility precisely in
a unique experimental narrative technique which has created a new
identity for them. The brief review of postmodern Canadian literary
endeavours undertaken in this section helps to generalize certain features,
tenets, themes, techniques and attitudes of the postmodern Canadian
authors. It is necessary here to have a brief glance over these trends that
will help to enhance the postmodern Canadian literature more
specifically.
1.6 Major Tenets of the Postmodern Canadian Literature:
The growing influence of postmodernism along with the promotion
of Canadian Federation of Independent Centennial (1967) results in the
production of a large number of texts in Canadian postmodern literature.
Further the Canadian writers are motivated by the federal government’s
official declaration of the country as a bilingual (1969) and multicultural
(1988) state. The growing body of novels by immigrants and ethnic
77
writers and the use of postmodern techniques along with the sense of
dismantling European codes constitute forms, settings and themes of
Postmodern Canadian literature. In an urge to create new identity of
Canadian literature in the global scenario and in response to the sociopolitical events of cultural nationalism, the postmodern Canadian authors
challenge to the conventional forms of realism. Many Canadian writers
construct their literary text on the world around them with formal and
linguistic experiments in it. To put forth and to give the new identity to
suppressed and marginalized cultural, regional and gendered perception
of Canada, they use the elements from aboriginal oral culture, regional
history, journalism, photography, collage, and other media. Thus, the
postmodern Canadian literature is “structured around some of the
subsidiary tendencies . . . namely realism, magic realism, the neo-Gothic,
fantasy or near-future fiction, historiographical fiction, and irony”
(Kroller 164). Responding to the socio-cultural and political issues of the
contemporary period, a number of writers depict various aspects in their
novels.
As rereading and rewriting of Canadian history become an
inescapable task for Canadian writers, a new trend of historical novel is
emerged in the postmodern Canadian literature, especially since 1980s.
Canadian literary critic Linda Hutcheon coined the term ‘historiographic
metafiction’ to describe these historical novels. The works of the period
re-examined historical as well as political events of the country. The
works such as George Bowering’s Burning Water (1980), Jane
Urquhart’s The Whirlpool (1986) and Away (1993), Guy Vanderhaeghe’s
The Englishman’s Boy (1996), Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace (1996),
Alan Cumyn’s The Sojourn (2003) and Frances Itani’s Deafening (2003)
explore the issues of territory, dispossession, appropriation, and
78
interrogation. Challenging the traditional understanding of history and
biography, these works re-examine the narrative techniques of
modernists. Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984) blends
history with contemporary issues; Joy Kogawa’s Obasan (1981) depicts
World War II and the devastating effects of emigration and
imprisonment. Morley Callaghan’s A Time for Judas (1983), Matt
Cohen’s The Spanish Doctor (1984), Urquhart’s The Stone Carvers
(2001), Sandra Birdsell’s The Russlander (2001), and Austin Clarke’s
The Polished Hoe (2002) are other examples of historical metafiction
which depict the past blending with the present.
The decade of 1960’s and 70’s see the emergence of the influential
philosophical and literary movements like Leninism, existentialism and
decolonization which further sting a spirit into a movement of cultural
transformations which is named as ‘Quite Revolution’ by many literary
and social historians of Canada. This movement raises the questions of
French migrants and attempts to transform Quebec into independent,
socialist and secular state. During this period a new term ‘Quebecois’ is
used to refer to these French Canadians who live in the region of Quebec.
Beside, the Quebec Government sees Jean-Francois Lyotard’s report on
the influence of technology on the definition of knowledge which resulted
into the publication of his famous book The Postmodern Condition: A
Report on Knowledge (1984). Along with the spirit of developing
nationalism and growing influence of postmodernism, these cultural and
regional changes provoked the French Canadian writers to write
linguistically innovative works with an emphasis on the popular working
class joule dialect. Jacques Godbout’s experimental novels Hail
Galarneau! (1967) and The Night of Malcolmm Hudd (1969) are written
in joule dialect which explore the territorial problems of the working
79
class community. Ducharme’s The Swallower Swallowed (1966) and
Aquin’s Next Episode (1965) and Blackout (1968) depict the effects of
nihilism and terrorism upon the contemporary society and its culture with
an innovative narrative technique. Jacques Ferron’s The Penniless
Redeemer (1969) depicts the subculture of the society which parodied the
traditional values. Godbout’s D’Amour P.Q. (1972) rejects themes of
existential powerlessness of the contemporary society.
With the changing cultural and constitutional perspectives of
Canada, regional novel continued to explore traditional concerns about
the value of social stability, tradition, and individual security. Many
Canadian writers of the period, especially after 1959, depict the regional
landscape of Canada in their novels. Setting the novels in and outside
Canadian locations, they comment upon their own culture, society and
their conventions. Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family (1982) and
Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy (1994) are centred on the Sri Lanka; M.
G. Vassanji’s The Gunny Sack (1989) depicts Tanzania; Rohinton
Mistry’s Such a Long Journey (1991) and A Fine Balance (1995) are the
portrayal of Indian landscape; Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game (2006)
depicts Lebanon region. Writers like Margaret Laurence, David Knight,
Audrey Thomas and David Godfrey set their works at African and
European locations which provide new perspectives of looking at the
world that allowed them to see Canada more clearly. Many writers used
Canadian geography realistically and symbolically to present their both
local and universal world.
However, the depiction of Canadian landscape can be divided into
two opposing topics: urban and rural. The urban novels such as Juan
Butler’s Cabbagetown Diary (1970) and John Buell The Pyx (1959) are
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realistic accounts of the corroding violence and alienation of the modern
society which symbolically represent unreal city. Writers like Douglas
Coupland, Russell Smith and Michael Turner have depicted urban
landscape in their works. Their works reflect the urban energy in an
aggressive way and a new cosmopolitan sensibility with territorial
planning in narrative. On the other hand, there is the depiction of rural
environment. The novelists like Matt Cohen (Salem), Margaret Laurence
(Manawaka), and David Adams Richard (Miramichi Valley) have created
their own landscape to present the land limited with limiting societies
which symbolizes the whole universe. Margaret Laurence’s Manawaka
novels – The Stone Angel (1961), A Jest of God (1966), and The Fire
Dwellers (1969) – are centred on the Manitoba region which depicts an
actual history of an individual and community. David Adams Richards’
novels – Nights Below Station Street (1988) and The Lost Highway
(2007) – depict the community of a deserted place, Miramichi region,
attached by the power of human kindness. Alistair MacLeod’s novel No
Great Mischief (1999) is centred on the Cape Breton Island and depicts
life, tradition and landscape of the region. These novels present the roots
of man that are rooted in rural area and his burdens. The protagonists of
the novels search their past in the rural places or sometimes reject its
authority. The Canadian wilderness has also become the subject, as well
as the setting, of fiction in modes ranging from the metaphoric to the
ecological.
Psychological novel also continues to explore the state of mind and
the changing role of Canadian imagination in the world. Many novelists
carefully unfold the behaviour of human being in a particular situation
through their examination of thoughts, feelings and reasons. The novels
such as Carol Shields’ Swann (1987), The Stone Diaries (1993), and
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Unless (2002) explore the suppressed lives of women and their urge to
give voice to the emotions and find the meaning of life through the
psychological analysis.
A number of immigrant writers have helped to widen the cultural
and geographical boundaries of Quebec novel with an emphasis on the
exile’s experiences in Canada. Various communities were migrated to
Canada during the period of colonization and settled there afterwards.
The experiences of immigration and displacement of these communities
are depicted by many authors. The works of Austin Clarke, Joy Kogawa
and Rudy Wiebe largely explore social problems experienced by
immigrants in Canada. There is the feeling of alienation, a feeling of
belonging into other country in their novels. Kattan’s Farewell, Babylone
(1975), Etienne’s The Crucified Negro (1974) and By the Cliff’s Edge
(2004), Emile Ollivier’s Mother Solitude (1983), Sergio Kokis’s
Funhouse (1994) and Ying Chen’s Ingratitude (1995) are some of the
novels that explore the immigrant’s experiences of being in other country.
Such novels by immigrant writers changed the perception of Canada by
bringing the diversity into the themes, forms and reception.
Subverting the established social institutions, challenging the
domination of super powers in the society, and explore the
disillusionment of the historical facts are some of the significant attitudes
of the postmodern literature. In Canadian literary tradition many authors
have protested against the domination of the established social
institutions like ‘patriarchy’. The feeling of marginalized is closely
related with the feminist concerns of oppression, representation and
resistance in postmodern Canadian literature. Many authors of the period
explore their female consciousness and attack on the causes of repression.
82
They point out the condition of women in the male dominated society.
Writers like Robert Kroetsch, Margaret Atwood, and Carol Shields depict
the suppressed feelings of contemporary woman. Leonard Cohen’s
Beautiful Losers (1966) questions the sexual roles in general. Kroetsch’s
Badlands (1975) uses female narrative voice to unfold postmodern
thoughts and strategies. He subverts the male narrative and foregrounds
marginalized woman voices. Like Kroetsch, Atwood also explicitly used
postmodern strategies to give voice to the oppressed women of her
fiction. Her novels like The Handmaids Tale (1985) explore the
predicament of woman and her role in the society. Richard Wright’s
Clara Callan (2001) and Bonnie Burnard’s A Good House (1999) also
explore the questions of gender role and sexual orientation. Thus, the
postmodern Canadian literature in its thematic core also concerns about
the power politics of gender. Nivedita Majumdar rightly points out in this
regard:
Nevertheless, postmodern thought has contributed to
feminism in some crucial ways . . . postmodernism . . . help
to expose oppressive ideologies by dethroning them from the
seat of grand and master narratives. However, it then goes on
to deflate and parody ideologies of meaningful struggles as
well. And that is the point where progressive feminist
politics has to part ways with postmodernism. (9)
While depicting the female condition, feminist novelists either
create idealized characters of women or present them as pure victims of
masculine domination.
83
Another prominent trend emerged during the postmodern period of
literary history of Canada is magic realism. The works of established
authors like Timothy Findley, Jane Urquhart, Margaret Atwood and Leon
Rooke present the elements of magic realism. The novels like Atwood’s
The Edible Woman and Rooke’s The Magician in Love (1981) explore
magic realism.
The neo-Gothic current is also powerful in postmodern Canadian
literature. Much of the works of the trend depict the monster bodies in
sinister atmosphere. Timothy Findley’s The Last of the Crazy People
(1967), Susan Musgrave’s The Charcoal Burners (1980), Anne Michaels’
Fugitive Pieces (1996), and Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees
(1996) are some of the works which are constructed in the sinister
atmosphere and reveal violence and terror.
A new kind of trend that is emerged in the postmodern Canadian
fiction is near-future fiction. The stories in such works are set in near
future with thriller. The life depicted in it is neither real nor imaginary,
neither dead nor alive. In an apocalyptic mood the writer explores the
boundaries between fact and fiction, and between reason and madness.
The novels like The Handmaids Tale by Atwood, Voices in Time (1980)
by MacLennan are set in the future after the devastation of civilization
and involve the reconstruction of the past with the help of various
documents.
Power and Victimization is another recurrent theme in postmodern
Canadian literature. The fiction of the period focuses on the social and
political issues of contemporary period like 1970’s October crisis or
federalism versus separatism. Writers like Margaret Atwood, David
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Lewis Stein investigated the tension between social and political
structures and the individual psyche. The works of Richard Wright, Leo
Simpson, Ian McLachlan and Timothy Findley present the predicament of
modern man who is confronted by the forces of corporate, consumer,
industrial and technological society.
Further the boundaries of Canadian literature are broadened by the
emerging voices like William Gibson, Chester Brown and Bernice
Eisenstein, who set new trends in the history of Canadian literature. They
used the elements of popular culture as a source to parody contemporary
culture. Their works explore the influences of technology upon the
generation of the period. Their characters experience the traumas and
tensions of the chaotic situations of the postmodern society. The science
fiction form is flourished in the Canadian literature by the hands of
William Gibson. His novels like Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986)
and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) explore the computer generated world
and its influences over human being. A new trend of graphic historical
novel is also developed in the last two decades which includes the
novelists such as Chester Brown and Bernice Eisenstein (I Was a Child of
Holocaust Survivors, 2006).
The area of Canadian literature is further extended by the poet’s
novel. It is, according to some literary historians, a hybrid form of novel
that widened traditional plot-driven form of realist novel with an
emphasis on the features of lyric poetry. Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful
Losers (1970), Carson’s Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998)
and Anne Michaels’s Fugitive Pieces (1998) are the major poet’s novels
constructed with the complex use of metaphoric language and constant
use of prose. Anne Michaels’s Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault
85
emphasize the themes of war, loss and memory and reveal the alienation
of the characters with elaborate syntax.
Thus, Canadian literature is flourishing with rapidity and acquiring
the worldwide acclaim in the global literary scenario. Many Canadian
writers have won prestigious literary prizes for their contribution which
placed them on the world reputation. Michael Ondaatje, Margaret
Atwood and Yann Martel have won prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
Besides, Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride (1993) received the
Commonwealth Prize for the Canadian and Carribean Region, Michael
Ondaatje’s The English Patient (1992) won the Governor General’s
Award for fiction, Carol Shields’s The Stone Diaries (1993) won both a
Governor General’s Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Most recently
established Orange Prize for fiction by women has been won by Carol
Shields and Anne Michaels. This list of prize winning authors suggest
that Canadian Literature is no longer remained marginalized and
undeveloped but have received the global attention to its constant
developing and flourishing form in the literary tradition. Along with the
established Canadian writers, many emerging voices like Russell Smith,
Lynn Coady and Anne Michaels are succeeding on the international stage
and are recognised world widely for their outstanding masterpieces that
set new parameters.
In the age of science and technology, the world has become a
global village, which stings a collective consciousness of man which
further generates the similar sensibility across the continents. The
Canadian response to the phenomenon of postmodernism can be
interpreted as their response to the globalisation. The narrative techniques
like
historical
metafiction,
intertextuality,
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pastiche,
and
the
experimentation in language cannot be seen as an imitation but it is result
of collective consciousness of the globalisation. The philosophical chaos,
indeterminacy of moral value, invalidity of religious faith has promoted a
literature which transcends the postmodern features.
Douglas Coupland is one of the emerging writers, who is well
known for his representation of socio-political, economic upheavals in the
changed scenario of the world triggered with advancement in the fields of
science and technology. He has become the spokesman of his generation,
who gives voice to the sensibility of postmodern youths and shows how
they are trapped in the chaotic situations of the contemporary period.
Almost all his novels explore harsher realities of life including intense
media diffusion, a lack of religious values and economic instability in the
upheavals of postmodern era.
In the light of theoretical framework discussed above, the
following chapters presents a detailed analysis of hyperreality,
technoculture, pop culture, postmodern religion, human sexuality, and
pastiche as prominent postmodern issues depicted in the select novels of
Douglas Coupland.
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