POSTMODERNISM (mid 1965-today)
‘Postmodern’ is the literature of the last half of the 20th century. Postmodernism opposes concepts such as capitalism, liberalism and internationalism. The concepts of human rights and democracy have been corrupted by modernism. Individual freedoms have been damaged, and people have become isolated in crowds. It rejects the universal values created by modernism. There are multiple truths and meanings. According to postmodernism, "everything is right, everything is wrong".
Postmodern philosophy emphasises the elusiveness of meaning and knowledge. Postmodernism says that society is no longer governed by history. Postmodern society is diverse, but it does not support "grand narrative". Grand narrative: One story that connects and explains all of humanity.
Postmodernism is suspicious of being "profound". It is characterized by irony, self-reflexivity. It has absurd, playful, or comic aspects. It prefers to focus on the exterior image and avoids underlying meanings of objects and events. Postmodern writers create an "open" work in which readers and provide their own interpretation. Postmodern novels celebrate the chaos of an incoherent world.
There are some elements of postmodernism. Irony, absurdity, playfulness and black humour are treating serious subjects as a joke. Magic realism has imaginary themes and subjects. Then minimalism has short stories where readers have to use their own imaginations. Besides, events can repeat to achieve irony. This is the temporal distortion.
Besides, there are potential problems with Postmodernism. There is nothing new to create. Everything is a copy of another in postmodernism. The meaninglessness is an important theme. Life has no meaning in postmodernism. The Waiting for Godot is an good example of this as an absurd drama. (Zamanınız yeterse yorum eklersiniz buraya. Bildiğimiz bir eser çünkü.)
Modernism reveals profound truths of experience and life. It tries to find depth meanings of objects and events. It focuses on central themes in a particular piece of literature. Modern authors guide and control the reader’s response to their work. Modernist novels mourn the loss of a coherent world.
