Postmodernism in Literature

Postmodernism is ambitious to define, because we go by it on a daily basis. Some would read it began in the 1950s, and others say it began with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Postmodernism is characterized by a variety of elements that gesture the recital learn. Postmodern authors celebrate this by using humour and absurd find outs to create a bizarre understudy cosmos. The different elements that are use throughout airmodernism stories include trick realness, metafiction and irony. wizardly realism is where the supernatural is not displayed as questionable. Magic realism differs from fantasy because it is range in a normal, modern humilitary personnel pieces with accurate descriptions of hu hu macrocosm beings and a society that does not question it. Another element is Irony. Irony is apply in postmodernism literature. Irony is when that which one would not expect occurs is true. Finally, Metafiction is a twist that self-consciously addresses the devi ces of fiction. This often happens by the author introducing themselves into the report railroad card. Post modernism and post colonialism are linked.The use of these techniques and elements encourage the indorser to contemplate or motion their reading come and ones understanding of conduct and societies political and cultural values. Magic realism is where the supernatural is not displayed as questionable. Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magic element. Magic realism is displayed in a niggling bill A Very Old Man with Enormous move by Gabriel Marquez. The tosh is about an disused distorted man with marvellous wings found on the beach by a couple. They travail to communicate with him plainly find it is useless as he speaks a different language.The neighbor completes over and severalises the couple that he is an apotheosis that has sire to take their sick child. The society and people from all over the world were astonished and wanted to see the angel. The couple grew tired of having so numerous people at their house that they began to charge money to see the angel they became rich and built a mansion. After a while the community grew tired of the angel because a woman who had turned into a spider by disobeying her parents arrived to town to share her stories with the community. Eventually the angel began to roam palliate and finally took off into the sky.This tarradiddle right away relates to magic realism because the tug does not question the angel or spider woman. The couples neighbor does not question it at all, scarcely she is quite beaten(prenominal) with it Hes an angel, she told them. He must have been coming for the child, but the poor feller is so old that the rain knocked him down (3). The woman is not take aback or surprised to see this man at all, in fact she is not questioning it either, but in reality it would seem real bizarre. The use of magic realism makes the reader question the reading exp erience and reality itself.Magic realism also plays a role in The ampere-second Horse by J. Winterson, A stratum about a man who drives to a party in a horrible cytosine encounter but is stopped by a strange man who insists on verbalise him a ghost tarradiddle. After dropping the strange man off he decides to take a short cut that his wife warned him not to take and force outs up in a car crash, but as it is crashing he sees a horse running up beside the car. The humbug that the strange man told him consisted of a man getting ambushed and robbed and was left for on the spur of the moment his horse died beside him as well.The story exhibited a richness of details that the man believed in the snow horse and seen it as he was crashing. When he gets home base and into bed he hears something Then I heard it, unmistakable, the steady coiffe of hooves under the window and towards the drift, and out, further and further, faster and faster, on the high old coaching road, beneath t he rack of stars. (6). hither Winterson is making a eccentric to Santas reindeer. This effect leaves the reader uncertain, whether to believe the magical element of the snow horse or the realist events in the story.Last but not least magic realism is displayed in The Night Face Up by Julio Cortazar. This story is about a man who is running from the Aztecs but is dreaming of being on a motorcycle and ends up in a car crash, yet the right smart Cortazar sets up the story makes it seem the opposite way around. This story is a good example of magic realism because it makes the reader question which world is reality and which one is a dream It was out-of-the-way as a dream because it was full of smells, and he never dreamt smells (266). present is a distinct part where reality is being confused with a dream. The story is very descriptive of both worlds which makes the reader uncertain and question which is world is real and which is not. This disrupts the reading experience. Irony is when that which one would not expect occurs is true, when reality is different from appearance. Irony is seen in Araby by James Joyce. Araby is about a young boy who falls head over heels for his friends older sister. He has never spoken to her but he seems to be deeply in love with her.When he finally speaks to her she mentions the Araby Bazaar and how she could not go, the boy brings himself to go to this bazaar to bring her back something but realizes it is not as he imagined it. This storey is humourous because it is perceived as the boy writing it, but in the ending it confirms that the narrator has learned his lesson and the reader learns it is an older, mature and more(prenominal)(prenominal) than emotionally experienced version of the boy I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. (4).The young boy went through tough situations to get to the bazaar and when he got there it was not what he pictured it to be. When he describes his anger it thusly tells the reader it is an older version of the boy telling his experience from the past. By using this technique it creates an ironic tension because it is human nature to transfigure what was said, how it was said and how other people acted, so it makes the reader question the reading experience by thinking whether he told the story correctly or not. Irony also plays a role in A Girls write up by David Arnason.This story is ironic because it is not a girls story it is a man who is stereotyping a female. It is the opposite of a girls story. Arnason is forever and a day stereotyping women and predicting what the reader expects out of the story. Arnason seems to stereotype how a woman would write the story as well Im going to have unhinge with the feminists about this story. I can see that already. (228). Here you can tell that it is a man stereotyping a woman because of the fact he is directly addressing women who will read this story and how they will dislike it.Irony also occurs in The Happy Man by Naguib Mahfouz. The happy man is about a man who wakes up extremely happy and cannot understand wherefore. He is commonly faced with strain and contemplation, but he wakes up happy. He then goes about his day and cannot even stay at work or sleep because of this strange happiness. He goes to a doctor to see wherefore he is so happy I havent come to see you because Im ill, he told the doctor in a hesitant tone of voice, but because Im happy (240). It is ironic because being happy is not an illness is very ironic to go to see a doctor because of it.He questions himself because he usually is not a happy man, but because of the grief and contemplation he has gone through has cause him to lose his mind and become inconceivably happy that he goes to doctors to try to cure it. This makes the reader question the reading experience and life itself. Metafiction is a device that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction. This often happens by the author violating narrative levels by intruding to comment on their writing, involving his or herself with the pretended characters or even directly addressing the reader.The use of metafiction makes the reader contemplate their reading experience. In A Girls Story by David Arnason metafiction is strongly used. Satire is also used throughout the story as well. Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm and ridicule. Here Arnason disrupts the reading experience by satirizing what the reader would think of this part of the story by saying I could do a lot more of that but you wouldnt like it (228). Arnason predicts what a reader would like or dislike in the story.Another strongly use of metafiction in the story is where Arnason directly mentions himself He even looks a little like me and he smokes the said(prenominal) kind of pipe (232). Here Arnason is directly addressing the reader by involving himself with the fictional characters. This disrupts the reading experience and makes the reader question the cultural and political views held by society. Another example of metafiction is displayed in Lost in the Funhouse by hind end Barth. Barth displays reflexivity where this enables to reader to understand the process by which he or she reads the world as a text.He casually interrupts to explain how he created the story Description of physical appearance and mannerisms is one of the several standard methods of act used by writers of fiction. (54). Barth tells the reader how describing physical appearance is important Alex 7 to keep the readers imagination and interest going. Throughout the story Barth interrupts to comment on his writing to explain what is going on and why he is using these different techniques.This makes the reader question the reading experience and their understanding of Barths writing. Finally metafiction is used in Araby. The reader perceives it as being the young boy telling his story, but in the end it is shown to be a more mature, older version of the boy. Usually when telling a story from the past people tend to change what happened, so this makes the reader question whether the narrator has changed anything about the story or not Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a instrument driven and derided by vanity and my eyes burned with anguish and anger. (4). Here we see a different side of the boy, a more experienced angry version. This shows the reader the man who is now telling the story from a past experience. These elements and techniques that the postmodern use disrupt and question the reading experience and encourage the reader to question it. Postmodernism and Post colonialism are linked through these techniques, magic realism, irony and metafiction.