POSTMODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE

The difficulties in unraveling the nuances and explaining the refinements of the concept of postmodernism
have led to numerous attempts to illuminate the term. Ranging between approving and fiercely skeptical tones,
such introductory books are nevertheless useful springboards for diving into more detailed investigations.
Appignanesi and Garratt 1995 is part of a longstanding series that seeks to offer cultural explanations through
the medium of the cartoon and is very accessible for that reason. Silverman 1990 and Tester 1993 offer sets of
essays on the impact that postmodernism has had on a variety of disciplines.
Although most of the overviews are introductory by nature, Taylor and Winquist 1998 seeks to provide a
thorough coverage of the different fields influenced by postmodernism, stretching to four volumes of extracts,
manifestos, and key essays. Generally, these books are best read in conjunction with others, and Taylor and
Winquist 2001 is a very helpful short-entry companion that can act as a supplementary aide to most overviews
on the subject.
One major source of research discussion that has rapidly become the standard journal for the cultural
concept is Postmodern Culture, whose very digital medium facilitates debates about the innovative formal and
experimental styles of postmodern literature and culture. Madsen 1995 and McCaffery 1986 between them
provide excellent specialist bibliographical sources to support the bibliographies found in most reference books
and general introductions.

Barry Lewis claimed that English literature in the postmodernism era has features such as:
1. Temporal Disorder – This refers not only to the disruption of the past, but also the disruption of
the present. Anachronism in historical postmodern fiction is an effective example of temporal
disorder because it flaunts “glaring inconsistencies of detail or setting”. For example, take Seth
Grahame-Smith’s 2010 novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which depicts and alters the
biographical facts of the 16th president of the U.S. Other postmodern novels alter the present by
deviating from ordinary time (chronos) and focusing on various instances of significant time
(kairos), as exemplified by novels such as Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow–which is known for its
overwhelming plethora of events and characters.
2. Pastiche – Alluding to the act of piecing things together, as in the case of a collage, pastiche is a
postmodern aesthetic that “actively encourages creative artists to raid the past in order to set up
a sense of dialogue between it and the present”. Pastiche came to prominence when artists
realized that the contemporary moment presents little room for originality because everything has
been said and done before–leading postmodern artists to “pluck existing styles higgledy-piggledy
from the resevoir of literary history”. A good example of pastiche would be Art
Spiegelman’s Maus, a graphic memoir that depicts a son who tries to create a work based on his
father’s experiences as a Polish Jew in the Holocaust.
3. Fragmentation – Perhaps one of the most prominent elements of postmodern texts, fragmentation
refers to the breakdown of plot, character, theme, and setting. Plot, for instance, is not presented
in a realistic or chronological fashion, bur rather, as “slabs of event and circumstance”. Take for
instance Sandra Cisnero’s The House on Mango Street (1984), which is told through a series of
memories or vignettes rather than through the traditional narrative structure expected from a
coming-of-age novel.
4. Looseness of Association – The incorporation of chance into the reading of a narrative text (e.g.
pages in a random and disorganized order, or a program that scrambles the order of the pages
in a text).
5. Paranoia – Paranoia refers to the distrust in a system or even a distrust in the self. Postmodern
texts often reflect paranoia by depicting an antagonism towards immobility and stasis. A notable
example of a literary text that invokes postmodern paranoia would be Tony Kushner’s 1993
play Angels in America.
6. Vicious Circles – These circles manifest when the boundaries between the real world and the
world of the text are collapsed, either through the incorporation of the author into the narrative, or
through the incorporation of a historical figure in a fictional text.

According to Lewis, the differing element would be experimentation. Whereas the features mentioned
above were employed in first-wave postmodernism as a way of challenging the authority and dominance of
literary conventions such as plot, setting, character, and theme, they are employed in second-wave
postmodernism simply because they have become integrated with the dominant literary culture. Thus, fiction
produced during second-wave postmodernism is crafted during a time in which “postmodernist fiction itself
became perceptible as a kind of ‘style’ and its characteristic techniques and themes came to be adopted without
the same sense of breaking new ground”. Notable examples of second-wave are novels such as Sherman
Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in
the Night-Time.

Matos, A. (2014). What is postmodern literature? Retrieved from https://angelmatos.net/2014/02/03

/what-is-postmodern-literature/

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time takes place in the year 1998 in and around the town of
Swindon, England. The fifteen-year-old narrator of the story, Christopher John Francis Boone, discovers the
slain body of his neighbor’s poodle, Wellington, on the neighbor’s front lawn one evening and sets out to
uncover the murderer. His investigation is at times aided, and at other times hampered, by the mild form of
autism he lives with. After Christopher hits a policeman in a misunderstanding at the scene of the crime, the
police take Christopher into custody. They release Christopher with only a stern warning, under the condition
that he promises to them and to his father not to look into the murder any further.

Christopher chronicles his investigation in a book—the book we are reading—as part of a school assignment.
Ignoring repeated warnings from his father, Christopher investigates the crime scene and conducts interviews
with the residents of his block. He uncovers a more tangled plot than was first apparent when he discovers that
his father and the owner of the slain dog, Mrs. Shears, had a romantic affair. He subsequently learns that their
affair began in reaction to another relationship, one carried on between Mr. Shears and Christopher’s mother,
before she disappeared from Christopher’s life.

At school, Christopher prepares for an A-level math exam that will enable him to attend a university, a feat no
other child at his school has managed. He also continues to work on his book. Upon returning home one
afternoon, Christopher accidentally leaves his book in plain view on the kitchen table. His father reads it,
becomes angry, and confiscates it. Later, Christopher searches for the book and uncovers a series of letters,
hidden in a shirt box in his father’s closet, addressed to him from his supposedly dead mother. The letters
chronicle a life that his mother has continued to lead with Mr. Shears in London and contain repeated requests
for Christopher to respond. In shock, Christopher passes out in his bedroom surrounded by the evidence of his
father’s deception. When Father comes home and realizes what has happened, he breaks down in tears. He
apologizes for his lies, explaining that he acted out of a desire to protect Christopher from the knowledge of his
mother’s abandonment of the family. Christopher’s father also admits to killing Wellington after an argument
with Mrs. Shears, his lover.

Christopher, now terrified of his father and feeling he can no longer trust him, sneaks out of the house and
travels to London to live with his mother. During a harrowing journey, he copes with and overcomes the social
fears and limitations of his condition, dodges police, and almost gets hit by a train. His arrival at his mother’s
flat comes as a total surprise to her, as she had no idea that Christopher’s father had been withholding her
letters. Christopher settles in for a time at his mother and Mr. Shears’s flat, but friction caused by his presence
shortly results in his mother’s decision to leave Mr. Shears to return to Swindon. Christopher moves into a new
apartment with his mother and begins to receive regular visits from his father. When Christopher’s pet rat Toby
dies, Christopher’s father gives Christopher a puppy. At school, Christopher sits for his A-level math exam and
receives an A grade, the best possible score. The novel ends with Christopher planning to take more A-level
exams in physics and further math, and then attend a university in another town. He knows that he can do all of
this because he solved the mystery of Wellington’s murder, was brave enough to find his mother, and wrote this
book (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time /)