Modern and Postmodern Perspectives

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Modern and Postmodern Perspectives
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Modernism as a reaction to Romanticism

• Romanticism

• Modernism/Postmodernism

• Ordered
• Meaningful
• Optimistic
• Stable
• Faith
• Morality/Values
• Clear sense of identity

• Chaos
• Futile
• Pessimistic
• Unstable
• Loss of Faith
• Collapse of morals/values
• Confused sense of identity and place in the world

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Major Influences

• World War I and II
• Freud and new psychology
• Faith-shaking writings
• Nietzsche
• Wrote critiques of religion, morality, culture
• God is Dead
• Truth?
• Darwin
• Naturalist
• Evolution
• Change in industry and technology
• The Enlightenment
• Protestant Reformation
• Philosophical skepticism and theological
  uncertainty

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Characteristics of Modernism (1915-1945)

• Removed God from center stage replacing it with
  the human knower as the starting point
• Assumed that human dignity, truth, and reason
  could be preserved without God
• Belief that previous structures of life were
  either destroyed or fantasies
• Life is meaningless
• Alienation
• Innovative writing encouraged
• Use of multiple narrators, stream of
  consciousness, and no resolution to reflect the
  current nature of existence
• Use of colloquial language
• Use of imagery and symbolism
• Writers were trying to change the way readers saw
  the world

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Postmodernism (1945-present)

• Response to modernism
• Rejects the modernist value of western
  civilization, which was
• Authority centered in man
• Rejecting god, church, and king as authority
• Suspicious of truth and value
• Subjective and based on the individual
• Against modernism, which believes in objective
  truth and value
• Confidence in human progress shattered
• Auschwitz, Soviet Union, etc. oppressed by the
  so-called systems of power
• Now not only was God excluded as a foundation for
  making sense of reality and human experience No
  universal truth, reason, or moralityjust
  fragmented perspectives.

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Modern to Postmodern Changes

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• Rational
• Centered
• European, Western
• Objective
• Belief in progress
• Logical, scientific
• Objective truth
• Apolitical
• Reasons rest on foundations other than God
  (reason, science, race, etc.)

• Irrational
• Decentered
• multicultural reject the West
• Subjective
• No progress possible
• Illogical, superstitious, opinion based
• Truth is socially constructed
• Politicizes everything
• All big explanatory systems or stories are
  suspect whether religious or not. No universal
  foundation for truth, morality, human dignity
  exist

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The Postmodern Worldview

• The quest for truth is a lost cause
• Objective, universal truth is a myth
• A persons sense of identity is constructed by
  their surrounding culture
• Decentered Identity is arrived at through the
  surrounding culture desired to dissolve the self
• Our culture constructs what we think of as real
• Who we are and our world are subjectively
  constructed through language reality is the text
  shown to us by those in power and is the only
  reality we will know. Language is not an
  effective tool of communication.

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The Postmodern Worldview cont.

• Reality is created by those who have power
• Nietzsche those in power shape the world with
  a theory of how language is the primary tool for
  making culture
• M. Foucault whoever dominates or controls the
  official use of language in society holds the
  key to social and political power
• One can neutralize the political power inherent
  in language by deconstructing it
• J. Derrida the language we use when we make
  statements creates a set of opposite beliefs, a
  binary, one of which is privileged and one of
  which is marginalized
• Honey is better for you than white sugar
  which is privileged/ marginalized?

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Modernism and Postmodernism in Literature

• Fragmentation in plot, characters, theme,
  images, and overall storyline. Thus, for
  instance, many works are not in the typical
  linear sequence. Randomness with purpose!
• Loss is a huge theme.
• The truth is questionable, as a common theme,
  and thus, you cannot always trust the narrator to
  tell the truth, whereas in traditional literature
  it is the narrators job to make the reader
  understand whats going on. Also, there may be
  more than one narrator, showing the diversity of
  truth.
• The destruction of the family unit.
• Characters may be given little or no physical
  description, and one or more characters is
  usually an "outcast."
• Authority figures are often untrustworthy,
  reflecting the question of truth.

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Modernism and Postmodernism in Literature

• Movement away from religion.
• The reversal of traditional roles (Example women
  doing something typically male and/or vice
  versa. Or the changing of customary racial
  roles).
• Ambiguous ending such works often leave a lot of
  questions with the reader they dont tie
  everything up for you.
• Often setting is more than just the setting (i.e.
  more meaning to it than just where the story
  takes place), or, maybe there is no setting at
  all.
• The use of improper grammar to reflect dialect.
• More sexuality and the use of intertextuality are
  often found.
• More use of the first person narrative,
  reflecting the lack of universal truth, i.e.
  there are only individual truths.