RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM

Literary Realism, Modernism and

Postmodernism: A Comparative
Introduction

ANDREW RAYMENT
Chiba University, Japan (2017)

This is an introductory guide to some of the key features of literary Realism,

Modernism and Postmodernism. It is aimed at undergraduate students who wish to
be able to place (particularly) English and Irish literary prose into a broader
intellectual / historical context.

I offer no literary examples of any of the features that I describe and would
encourage students to go out and find their own.

The students with which I use this material are Japanese, so I make no apologies
for using explanations that are the most accessible to them.

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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM

19th Century Realism

19th century prose literature was dominated, in Europe and America, by the ʻRealist’ novel.

Below are some of the common characteristics of 19th-century Realist novels.

1. FOCUS Ordinary things, people and places: a world that the readers can recognize as
their own. Realist novels present an every-day material world.
2. SETTING Real locations that the readers can recognize.
3. AUDIENCE Mainly middle class people (with the industrial revolution and the rise of
capitalism, the 19th century saw a huge rise in the number of middle class
people. They had money, enough leisure-time to read and wanted to read
about people like themselves).
4. CHARACTERS  Ordinary people from different classes
 Main characters are usually middle-class (which middle class readers
can recognize as being like themselves)
 Main characters usually develop through the novel
 Main characters seek socially acceptable goals (e.g. marriage,
independence, maturity, wisdom, duty) depending on their class, age
and gender
 Realist novels are interested in character psychology in a social
setting and social interaction
 Realist novels are interested in social conflict (within and between
different social classes, between men and women, between personal
inclinations and social restrictions)
5. THEMES  Family, love, wealth, status, the struggle to be happy and successful
and to fulfill oneself as an individual, the struggle to do one’s duty
 Difficulties for women (who often found themselves restricted by
society’s rules / morals)
6. VALUES  Middle-class values. The themes reflect what 19 th century middle-
class people thought were important in life
 19th century Realist novels were often very moralistic, teaching the
ʻcorrect’ ʻideal’ values:
 ʻGentlemen’ were expected to be: independent, financially
independent, hard-working, honorable, chivalrous, discreet,
courteous, rational, unemotional, calm, experienced in the world
 ʻLadies’ were expected to be: chaste, virtuous, domestic, loving, kind,
practical, loyal, emotional, morally superior: ʻthe Angel in the House’
 Everyone in ʻgood society’ was expected to be: respectable, moral,
self-helping, practical, cool-tempered, sober
 Everyone in ʻgood society’ was expected to ʻbehave correctly’ and
ʻkeep up appearances’. Improper behaviour, if discovered, could lead
to scandal and social disaster
7. STYLE  The characters use ordinary, every-day language. The narrator
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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
usually has a middle-class style
 Lots of description and lots of details (including background details)
which build up the ʻreality effect’
 A focus on the difference between surface & depth and appearance &
reality (19th century Realist novels describe societies where everyone
is acting / playing a part and where people cannot always speak
honestly / directly – characters always have to be aware what society
will think of them)
8. TIME  Realist novels usually take place over a long period of time that
describes the main character’s whole life or a significant part of it
 Time is linear – it goes in a straight line from A to B without many, if
any, ʻjumps’ back into the past.
 Memory is not a theme in Realist novels
9. NARRATOR  Either a first-person narrator who describes what happened in his /
her life or a third-person narrator who describes what happens from
a position ʻabove’ or ʻoutside’ the story. Third-person narration may
be direct (where the narrator is entirely detached from the characters)
or indirect (where events are focalized through a particular character
so that the narrators voice merges with the character’s thoughts). Both
can often be found in the same text
 Third-person narrators are like God: they are omniscient: they know
everything
 Third-person narrators are also rather like scientists doing an
experiment: they are ‘detached’ observers, making notes about life,
collecting data and (supposedly) revealing its universal patterns. They
give the impression that they are objective, neutral and rational (just
like the world they describe) and that they are able to capture the
ʻreality’ of the world realistically
 Just like (nineteenth-century) scientists, third-person narrators assume
that the world always works in rational and knowable ways that can
be described in transparent language and that they are looking at it
from a neutral position
 Critics in the 20th-century, particularly in the Modernist movement,
will ask: (1) are 19th-century Realist novels really so realistic? (2) are
19th-century Realist novels really so neutral? Don’t they just pretend to
be neutral / universal while actually promoting nineteenth-century
middle-class values / morals?

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Early 20th Century Modernism

In the early 20th century in Europe and America, there was a revolutionary artistic movement (in
literature, painting, music, architecture, sculpture) called ʻModernism’.

Modernism reacts against and rejects the assumptions of 19th century ʻRealist’ art:
Modernist Claim #1 The ʻreality’ of 19th century ʻRealist’ art is not really real.
Modernist Claim #2 The presentation of the world in 19 th century Realism as rational /
knowable / harmonious / describable in objective language is an illusion.
Modernist Claim #3 ʻReality’ is more complex / fragmented than 19th century ʻRealism’
suggests because ʻreality’ is subjective (depending on the relative
perspective of the viewer in space and time).
Modernist Claim #4 Language is not objective. It doesn’t simply reflect the world
transparently as it seems to in Realism. Language often fails (words
don’t capture the intended meaning; words can be misinterpreted,
unreliable or misleading; language is used only with great difficulty).
Modernist Claim #5 19th century Realism just pretends to be a neutral / objective picture of
ʻreality’. It presents its traditional / conservative / moral values as natural
in order to make them unquestionable.

Modernism seeks new, experimental ways of describing the world in art. Modernist art is difficult
precisely because the ʻreality’ of the world is so difficult to capture. According to Modernists:
The world is irrational, ...so it NEEDS... ...art which is fragmented,
subjective, complex, irrational, subjective, complex,
meaningless and unreliable... meaningless and unreliable.

The FORM of art is part of its MEANING

HOW art shows the world reflects WHAT the world is like

Modernism shows new ways of city life at the beginning of the 20th century. It is urban art. It tries to
show a new world of:
mass technology mass transport mass commerce mass communication mass living

The city is:

Exciting (people are freer BUT ALSO Alienating (people feel alone in the crowd and
than in the 19th century) struggle to find personal relationships).
De-humanizing (people live like machines).

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Modernism rejects many 19th century values. It is influenced by:
The First World War (1914- Mass industrial killing made it difficult to believe in such ideas as
1918) ʻprogress’, patriotism, the class system, God, patriarchy.

Thinkers such as: Karl Marx, Charles Such thinkers made it difficult to believe in social
Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, organizations (aristocracy, church, class system, family)
William James, Henri Bergson, Friedrich as rational, logical and harmonious.
Nietzsche

Modernism challenges traditional sources of (male) authority (politicians, the king, the church) and
shows how society / individuals are in constant conflict.

Modernism reflects a time of:

More freedom (social, political,
sexual) (especially for women)
because traditional authority has
become weaker.
More anxiety and crisis
If one can no longer believe in God, the country, ʻprogress’, the
family what can one believe in? If one can no longer play a
traditional, understandable role in society (e.g. as husband,
father, bread-winner), what role can one play?
If one cannot find meaning in God, one’s country, one’s
tradition, where can one find meaning?

Below are some of the common characteristics of 20th century Modernist writing:
1. FOCUS Ordinary things, people and places, but the world is made unfamiliar. It is an
ordinary world but one seen from the point of view of a particular, individual
consciousness.
2. SETTING Real locations, usually in cities, but which made unfamiliar by being seen
from the point of view of a particular, individual consciousness.
3. AUDIENCE Mainly highly educated upper-middle class people. Modernism is quite elitist
and aimed at intellectuals who want to think rather than people who want
simply to be entertained. Modernist literature is often deliberately difficult for
this reason.
4. CHARACTERS  Ordinary people from different classes
 In Modernism, we always see the main character(s) from the inside
 A key Modernist idea: all individuals see and experience the world
differently from each other (subjectively) and so ʻreality’ is (partly)
formed in the way a particular, individual consciousness organizes
ʻreality’. As a result, Modernist writing usually focuses on how
ʻreality’ seems to the individual consciousness of the main character as
he / she experiences the world from moment-to-moment
 A key Modernist idea: ʻreality’ is relative to perspective. As a result,
Modernist writing often shows how different events / people /
situations are experienced subjectively by different characters at the
same time. None of the versions is ʻcorrect’ because an objective view

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of ʻreality’ is impossible
 A key Modernist idea: the ʻunified self’ is an illusion. Our selves are
not ʻunified’ or ʻwhole’ (though we think they are), but, rather, are
divided into conflicting conscious and unconscious parts. People
repress thoughts which are not acceptable (their darkest desires, their
darkest fears, traumas which they are desperate to forget) into their
unconscious, but these unconscious thoughts keep coming back to
unsettle them. Modernist writing tries to show what the characters are
thinking rationally in their conscious minds but also, at the same time,
show the unconscious thoughts that they are unaware of
 A key Modernist idea: the self is fluid, always shaped and re-shaped
by experience. Understanding the kind of person one is depends on
one’s ability to make sense of one’s experiences, but this is difficult
because: (1) the world is fragmented, complicated and meaningless; (2)
our senses deceive us; (3) language is unreliable and can’t grasp the
world objectively. We can piece the world together so that it seems to
make sense to us, but is our account accurate? Can we really describe
ourselves or the world, or do we just create a version of it that is
subjective and unreliable? Modernism shows the struggle to make
meaning of ourselves and the world and the consequences of doubt
about ʻtruth’ and ʻmeaning’
 A key Modernist idea: understanding the kind of person one is also
depends on one’s ability to make sense of one’s past experiences to
understand how they have shaped one. This is a problem because
memory is unreliable (we remember things we don’t want to
remember, forget things we do want to remember, remember things
incorrectly or have false memories because we are trying to hide
something from ourselves). Modernist writing is full of characters
struggling to remember the past in order to try to make sense of
themselves in the present, and many whose past (in the form of
unwanted or repressed memories trying to come back) keeps intruding
into their lives and upsetting their present self
 Many characters in Modernist texts are confused, in crisis, alienated
because (1) the Modern world seems so confusing, meaningless and
impersonal; (2) the Modern self is in conflict between the ego (the
rational, conscious, social self) and the id (the irrational, unconscious
self with its unreasonable demands and desires)
 Modernism is not just interested in character psychology in a social
setting at the surface level, but also in the role of the unconscious and
memory in forming ʻself’ at the deeper level
 Characters in Modernist novels often experience moments of
ʻheightened significance’ at which suddenly the world comes into
focus. This is the Modernist ʻepiphany’ or ʻmoment-of-being’
5. THEMES  How individuals experience the world from moment-to-moment in
their consciousness and the difficulty of giving a reliable account of
experience
 The effect of memory and the unconscious on the self and internal

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conflicts and crises created by the ʻdivided self’
 The new possibilities and anxieties created by the new social
conditions
 Social conflicts and crises of the Modern world created by the
breakdown of traditional forms of authority
 The search for meaning in a seemingly meaningless Modern world
6. VALUES  Modernism (mostly) rejects old, conservative, traditional, middle-class
values of family, class, country, religion, gender. These are ʻvalues’ that
make people conform in order to control them and restrict their
individuality by imposing false ʻtruths’ upon them. Some Modernists
embrace this change; other Modernists feel very anxious about /
nostalgic for it because it is not clear what the old forms of authority
will be replaced with
 Most Modernists value individual, subjective experience over group,
ʻobjective’ experience. They do not believe that there is any such thing
as ʻnormal’ – ʻnormality’ just means conformity / obedience to
something that is essentially meaningless. All meaning has to be
organized by the individual, not conferred by the group because truth /
meaning / reality are relative and subjective
 Many Modernists are interested in extreme / unusual / shocking
experience because they think that the truth of the human condition is
best revealed when the veneer of social conformity is removed. They
value experimentation in life and in art
 For the same reason, many Modernists value the unconscious part of
the mind as being the key to understanding the self
7. STYLE  Modernist texts usually provide little or no context. Often the reader is
just thrown into a narrative and has to orientate him or herself. This is a
way of replicating how confusing the world is
 Modernists texts are often fragmented and / or full of gaps. Readers
have to ʻfill in’ the gaps and connect the fragments of information by
themselves. This is a way of replicating how we create meaning in the
real world
8. TIME  Modernist texts often take place over very short periods of time
because they describe character experiences from moment-to-moment
 Because memory is a major theme in Modernism, time in Modernist
writing is non-linear – it jumps from past to present and back again
 Time is experienced subjectively by each character (durée)
9. NARRATOR  Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are common forms of
Modernist prose narration
 Some Modernist writers use third-person indirect narration, but in a
way with much less contextualizing than one would find in a Realist
text
 First-person Modernist narrators tend to be extreme unreliable (see
below)
 In many Modernist texts, readers experience characters from inside
their subjective consciousnesses as the characters experience life from

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moment-to-moment. What we get is a disordered mixture of rational
thought, conscious impressions, subconscious impressions and
associations, moments where unconscious thoughts intrude, memories
that are deliberately recalled, memories that come unbidden and
attempts to remember things. This reflects the Modernist idea that
thought is not (always) rational, organized, structured and controlled
 Modernist narrators are often unreliable: they try to piece their present
and past experiences together but are shown to often make mistakes.
This reflects the Modernist ideas that (1) ʻreality’ is so complex and
our tools to describe it so weak (our unreliable senses, unreliable
language, unreliable memory, unreliable ways of thinking); (2)
narratives are always told from a subjective viewpoint. So accounts of
ʻwhat really happened’ are always dubious

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Late 20th / Early 21st Century Postmodernism

ʻPostmodernism’, in the late 20th / early 21st century, is a continuation and development of Modernism
in the early 20th century.

It is associated with ʻpost-structuralist’ French philosophers of the 1950s up to the present, such as:
Roland Barthes Jacques Derrida Michel Foucault Jacques Lacan Jean-Françoise Lyotard

Postmodern ideas about art and philosophy are similar in some ways to those in Modernism:
the human self is complex language is problematic ʻtruth’, ʻknowledge' and
ʻmeaning’ are relative

But Postmodernism adds to Modernism by taking its ideas to their logical conclusion. For example:
In Modernism, ʻthe truth’ is BECOMES In Postmodernism, the whole ʻtruth’ of ʻreality’ is
difficult to grasp in language that it is a product of language

All postmodern ideas depend on a particular view of language:

In the postmodern view, language creates a gap between humans and the world. Humans, thus,
do not experience the world directly, but, rather, through language. We cannot experience the
world except through language, so language provides the co-ordinates for our very
understanding of ʻreality’.

This view of language has a number of profound implications:

Postmodernism and (1) Language is differential, not
Language 1 referential.
(2) Language does not refer to the
world but to itself.
(3) Language creates a world in which
ʻreality’ depends on differences in
language.
e.g. What is a ʻriver’ and what is a
ʻstream’? In English, ʻa stream’ is a
ʻsmall river’. In French, ʻa stream’ is ʻa
river that flows into another river rather
than the sea’ – size is irrelevant.
e.g. What is ʻgreen’ and what is ʻblue’?
English has two words that make a
difference between these colours, but
many languages do not.

The definitions depend on a

difference in language, not an
objective difference in the world.

e.g. Think of the way that Inuit

languages have many different words
for different kinds of ʻsnow’. If you
stand with an Inuit person looking at
snow, is the physical reality of what
you are looking at different, or is it just
that the ʻreality’ each of you sees
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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
Postmodernism and (1) Language privileges certain terms.
Language 2 (2) We think that words just reflect
natural order of world, but it is the
other way round! Language creates this
order.
Postmodernism and Our idea of ʻreality’ is based on
Language 3 narratives (stories). Again, we think
that narratives just reflect the natural
order of the world, but it is the other
way round! Narratives create this order.
The logic of this idea is that our
ʻreality’ is fictional, or, at least, has a
lot in common with fiction.
depends on the differences in the
languages through which you look at
the world?
e.g. Think about what Neil Armstrong
said when he stepped onto the moon:
“One small step for a man, but one
giant leap for mankind”.
Why did he say ʻmankind’ not
ʻhumankind’ or ʻwomankind’?
e.g. Is ʻAmerica’ real? It seems real, but
what kind of ʻreality’ does it have? All
countries are a product of language /
stories / narratives, a product of the way
humans construct ʻreality’ in language
about themselves and others. Think
about it this way: does a bird or a
mouse think that ʻAmerica’ is ʻreal’?

The Postmodern idea of language has a number of implications for the Postmodern view of the human
self. Most ordinary people feel like unique individuals. We believe that behind our social masks is a
ʻreal’, ʻtrue’, ʻdeep’ self and that we can all express our ʻinner’ selves in how we choose to live: our
choice of car, our hairstyles, the clothes we choose to wear etc. All seem to express something about
our ʻreal’ selves.

Most ordinary people also believe that there is a ʻtranscendent human nature’, a human nature that
exists ʻabove’ the time / place where the individual lives. This is a belief that human nature is basically
unchanging: that humans are all, basically, the same and always have been.

But how can both of the above ideas be true? How can humans be both ʻunique’ and ʻall the same’?
According to Postmodernism, both ideas are illusions. Postmodernism shows that such ideas about ʻthe
unique self’ and ʻtranscendent human nature’ are quite new: it is only recently that people have come to
think about themselves in this way. Specifically, Postmodernism, links both ideas to capitalism: making
people believe that they are unique encourages people to consume products that can be sold as sign of
their uniqueness; making people believe that human nature is basically unchanging, that humans are all,
basically, the same and always have been discourages people from thinking that people / society cannot
change.

The Postmodern Self 1 (1) The self is a cultural product.
(2) The self is constructed from cultural
narratives external to it.
(3) Different cultures produce similar
ʻproducts’ at different times.
e.g. What if you had been born
in Saudi Arabia? Your name,
nationality, religion would all
be different... You would have a
different cultural idea about
acceptable goals in life,
different cultural ideas about
ʻman’ and ʻwoman’...

Basically, you would not be

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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
The Postmodern Self 2 (1) In Postmodernism, individuals are
always called ʻsubjects’.
(2) The cultural worlds that we live in
seem normal / natural to us because we
live alongside lots of other people
ʻproduced’ by the same narratives.
(3) We are ʻsubject’ to our cultures in
the sense that our cultural narratives
impose a ʻreality’ on us that does not
belong to us and, thus, controls us.
The Postmodern Self 3 (1) Postmodernism rejects ʻessentialist’
ideas about the self, especially those to
do with gender, sexuality and race.
(2) Identity positions are produced in
culture and subjects identify with them
as they internalize cultural narratives.
(3) Subjects perform the identity they
have internalized to create ʻidentity’.
(4) Postmodernism’s suggestion that the
self is formed in identification and
performance logically implies a self that
is radically exteriorized.
(4) According to Postmodernism, there
is no natural basis to any identity
position, be it ʻwoman’, ʻgay’,
ʻmuslim’, ʻblack’, ʻJapanese’, because
all such identities are discursive,
existing in language not biology.
(5) Someone’s DNA will not tell you
their race, sexual orientation, religion or
nationality. It will tell you their
biological sex, but it will not tell you
their culturally defined gender.
The Postmodern Self 4 (1) In western culture, the ʻdominant’
(privileged) group has for a long time
been white, sexually ʻnormal’, upper-
class, Anglo-European men.
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ʻyou’. You would have been
shaped into a different form by
all the identity positions given
to you by culture.
e.g. Your desire to buy a
particular iPhone and
personalize it with a cover is
not your desire, it is culture’s.
Our cultural norm is for us to
consume and for us to create
our identity based on what we
consume. If you buy an iPhone
and personalize it with a cover,
it seems like it is your choice
(and other individuals who have
been formed by the same
cultural codes will confirm that
what you are doing is totally
natural) but actually, you are
acting out culture’s desire.
e.g. Do you have to ʻlook
Japanese’ to be Japanese?
e.g. Think of the way ʻbeing a
woman’ in Japan 1,000 years
ago is totally different to ʻbeing
a woman’ in Japan in the 21st
century. This is because gender
roles always change over time
(and between cultures).
e.g Although there is a long
history of homosexual desire,
identifying yourself as ʻa
homosexual’, and living ʻas’
one, has only a short history
going back a few hundred
years.
e.g. Think about people who
say things like “all Muslims are
terrorists”, or “all homosexuals
are paedophiles”, or “all women
RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
(2) Postmodernism highlights how are emotional, not rational”, or
essentialist ideas about ʻminority’ (non- “all blacks are criminals and
privileged) groups of people were and savages”.
are used to justify controlling,
discriminating against, and even killing Such claims are often made by
them. people (often white, sexually
(3) This is a process called ʻOthering’, ʻnormal’, Anglo-European men)
in which those from minority groups who want to discriminate
come to be defined according to against those they perceive as
supposedly general (negative) being essentially different (less
characteristics rather than as human) than themselves.
individuals. “They are all like that” is
then used as an excuse for not treating Those who are Othered are
people from those groups as individual often treated as if their defining
humans “like us”. characteristics are not
(4) Western culture has historically individual, but, rather, those of
tended to think of its own cultural the group they are perceived as
practices and values as ʻnormal’, neutral belonging to. We tend to think
or even, somehow, natural. Thinking of of ourselves and others like us
your own cultural norms as a kind of as individuals first (“we are
default position from which Other John, Andy, Paul and Peter”)
cultural practices can be judged has lead and group-members second
to the practices of those from Other (“we are British”). When
cultures being judged as somehow Othering someone, however,
ʻobjectively’ ʻabnormal’, ʻirrational’ or the situation is reversed: they
even ʻdeviant’. are “Muslims” first and Omar,
Najif, Mohammed and Ahmed
Implicit in the West’s sense of its own second.
cultural practices and values as ʻnormal’
and ʻnatural’ is a sense that they are e.g. In Victorian England, in the
superior. 19th century, many believed that
it was ʻnatural’ for women to
Postmodernism, with its emphasis on stay at home and bring up
language / narratives, dismisses such children. This, of course, was a
thinking as nonsense. All cultural cultural belief based on the idea
practices and values are relative (none that women were ʻnaturally’
can be ʻbetter’ than any other and there ʻmore domestic’ than men This
can be no ʻnormal’). To claim that one’s essentialist stereotype held back
cultural practices are somehow ʻnatural’ women’s progress in England
is an act of ideology that reinforces for many years.
one’s privilege and power.
The Postmodern Self 5 (1) Identity in Postmodernity is e.g. Think of the way that in the
discursive (formed by language, last fifty years, new ʻminority’
narrative and performance within a gender and sexuality identities
culture), not essential (formed by have come into being. One
biology). Because of this, identity is hundred and fifty years ago, it
unstable and unfixed, and there can be would have been impossible to

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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
no such thing as a ʻnormal’ identity. talk about ʻLGBT’ because
(2) For some, however, the instability of these identity positions did not
identity is disturbing – many people exist.
like having a ʻfixed’, ʻcertain’ identity
because it gives them a sense of security e.g. Think, too, about the
to feel ʻnormal’. discrimination that LGBT
(3) But, for others, the idea that identity people face. Why should so
is unstable is liberating because, if our many people hate
identity is not fixed biologically, it homosexuals? The Postmodern
opens the possibility for change. answer is (partly) that it is a
sign of insecurity – difference
makes them feel uncomfortable
(as, unconsciously, it makes
them question their own sense
of self as ʻnormal’).
The Postmodern Self 6 (1) In Postmodernism, the self is a kind e.g. Think of the way that you
of fiction because our identity is a try to conform to or resist
matter of language and narration. conventional narratives that try
(2) Subjects have to negotiate an to impose themselves on you
identity from the narratives that are and shape you into a certain
imposed upon them. kind of person:
(3) But subjects also have some
freedom to resist such narratives and There are narratives that tell
actually narrate themselves and their you how to be a ʻproper’
own identities. ʻJapanese’, a ʻproper’ ʻwoman’,
a ʻgood’ student, how to behave
In other words: ʻcorrectly’ in social situations.
The self is a product of cultural Your parents will have let you
narratives: the way our lives are know ʻthe story’ that they
narrated for us by others. But it is also a expect or hope you to follow.
product of way we narrate our lives to
ourselves. Think also about how you
negotiate a position in relation
Our identity depends on the shared to these narratives and the ways
ʻstories’ of others (about nation, gender, in which you ʻnarrate’ your own
religion, sexuality, ʻbeing normal’ etc). life (e.g. when you tell your
But it also depends on how the story we friends about ʻthe story of your
tell ourselves about ourselves fits into life’ or when you narrate the
cultural narratives outside ourselves. public ʻstory’ of yourself on
There is always, in other words, some Facebook)
margin of freedom.
We can resist up to a point:
unlike a character in a book, we
can ʻjump out of a particular
narrative’, but, of course,
according to Postmodernism,
we are are not free to jump out

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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
stories themselves. We can
change the story; but we cannot
change the fundamental fact
that we are in a ʻstory’.

Below are some of the common characteristics of Postmodern writing:

1. FOCUS The focus of Postmodern texts is always on the the relationship between
people and language / narratives.
2. SETTING Can be anywhere and at any time. There is a lot of historical Postmodern
fiction that highlights how history is not objective but depends on who writes
it (powerful, white men from the ʻwinning’ country). There is also a lot of
Postmodern fiction that is a bit like Science Fiction, which explores how the
digital age affects contemporary narratives and how they may affect future
narratives (if people stop reading literature...; the new narratives made possible
by digital technology...)
3. AUDIENCE Postmodern fiction usually aims to be playful and experimental, so it is quite
light, but it is not pure entertainment because it wants the reader to think about
the implications of what it has to say about narratives.
4. CHARACTERS  The focus in Postmodern texts is always on identity – how it is shaped,
constructed, performed, changed and maintained
 Postmodernism tries to show how essentialism is a dangerous illusion
 There is often a focus on ʻOther’, traditionally non-privileged
identities: how do women, homosexuals, non-Europeans experience
the world? What is the world like from these marginal perspectives?
 Postmodernism also explores new possibilities for identity positions
and ʻhybrid identity’ – those people who are caught between different
cultures and often pulled in different directions by narratives that
ʻcompete’ for them
 Postmodernism emphasis how the self is like a fictional character,
narrating itself and being narrated by others
5. THEMES  Postmodernism explores the dividing line between ʻreality’ and
ʻfiction’ and between ʻreality’ and ʻtruth’
 It emphasizes how human ʻreality’ is like fiction (because the whole
human universe is linguistic)
 But it also emphasizes that things do not have to be ʻreal’ to be ʻtrue’.
Literature is a good example itself of something ʻnot real’ but which
contains ʻtruth’
 Postmodernism explores the dangers and opportunities of narratives.
On the one hand, people can easily be made to conform to narratives in
order to control them. On the other, these narratives are not fixed and
so can be changed
 Postmodernism also explores the dangers and opportunities of
literature itself (it is self-reflexive). On the one hand, some literature,
like 19th century Realist literature, pretends to present a universally
applicable version of the world so that, for example, its views on the
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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
role of women in society are presented as universally ʻnatural’ rather
than simply the prejudices of 19th century middle-class English culture.
It is dangerous to internalize the values of literature without
understanding that they are a biased cultural product, not an expression
of a universal truth. Many Victorian women read 19th century novels
and tried to behave like the characters in them because they accepted
the values of the literature that told them this is what they ʻshould do’.
They were manipulated, in other words, without knowing it.
Postmodern literature tries to highlight such dangers. On the other
hand, literature in the Postmodern view is essential to being human. It
is a place that offers and expresses different kinds of ʻtruth’ than can be
found in other narratives; it is a place of resistance to totalizing /
essentialist views of the world; it is a place where new ideas can be
explored, where the mind can be opened, where new things can be
expressed and where people can learn to empathize with others
6. VALUES  Postmodernism is suspicious of ʻtotalizing’ narratives (ʻmeta-
narratives’) that claim to be expressing a universal truth (about ʻwhat is
natural’) and / or which try to force people to conform to them (ʻwhat
is moral’)
 According to Postmodernism, all ʻtruth’ is relative, depending on
cultural values, so there can be no such thing as ʻnatural families’,
ʻnatural sexuality’, ʻnaturally superior values’, ʻnaturally superior
races’ etc. and morals, too, must always be relative
 Meta-narratives often hide the fact that the people who promote them
gain power from them
7. STYLE  Postmodern texts often contain a mixture of genres (hybrid genre). By
breaking the ʻrule’ that a text should be written in one generic style,
Postmodern literature draws the reader’s attention to how literature is
defined and shaped by artificial genres
 Postmodern literature often contains metafiction:
 ʻMetafiction’ = self-reflexive features of the fictional writing that
remind the reader that they are reading fictional writing
(Postmodernism is often said to be ʻfiction about fiction’ or ʻstories
about stories’)
 (1) It reminds the reader that some narratives that claim to be objective,
neutral and universal (e.g. Realist literature, history) are actually
subjective, selective fictions that express a culturally biased view of the
world. Even scientific discourses are at least partially subject to this
 (2) It warns the reader to be aware of what they are reading and look
for the hidden ways in which they may be manipulated by narratives,
especially fictional narratives
 (3) It asks the reader to think about how literature is constructed and
the biases in such construction. For example, how would a story have
been different if told from another character’s point of view?
 Postmodern literature often contains parallel narratives (the same story
told from different perspectives). This shows the reader how the same
ʻreality’ may be constructed in different ways from different subjective
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RAYMENT REALISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM
positions
8. TIME  Postmodern writing is often non-linear. Time is often elongated or
compressed, jumps backwards and forwards or is presented as parallel
streams
 Postmodern writing often does not have a clear end – this reflects the
Postmodern idea that the stories / narratives that form human ʻreality’
never end. ʻReality’ is constantly open to change as human cultures
change
9. NARRATOR  Postmodern narrators are often not only unreliable, but also self-aware,
aware, that is, that they are a character in a fiction.
 This is a form of meta-fiction that (1) reflects the Postmodern idea that
our ʻreal’ lives are also fictional and (2) reminds the reader to be
cautious about the fact that he / she is consuming literature, which may
point towards, but can never be the same as, real life...

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