American literary Postmodernism flourished in the period after World War II, though most critics place its inception in the late fifties and early sixties. It was a reaction to the times: the end of World War II, Hiroshima and the atomic bomb, the Civil Rights movement, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vietnam, the global economy, and the technology boom. Owing to these culture-altering events, many American writers realized that the received forms of the past did not accommodate the concerns of the Postmodern condition of contemporary American life—the general cultural upheaval resulted in a literary upheaval as well.

Writers such as John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, William Gass, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut began to redefine the basic elements of literature; the notions of genre, narrative, character, plot, reader, and author were all being revised.

American Postmodernist writers focused on dismantling the grand narratives, or the grand truths, of modern literature. Vladimir Nabokov uses parody and a combination of revising and subverting popular literary genres in Lolita (1955); John Barth questions the ontological status of author, reader, and text in Lost in the Funhouse (1968) through the interjection of self-reflexive commentary and experimentation with the short-story form; Donald Barthelme interrogates master narratives through parodying Realist and Modernist novels by means of intertextuality, self-reflexive prose, and an explosion of form in Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964) and Snow White (1967); and Thomas Pynchon disrupts narrative structure, forestalls closure, and celebrates indeterminacy, chaos, and open-endedness in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966).

“What is Postmodernism?” This question has plagued many a critic, student, reader, and author alike. Most theorists have their own working definition, but “Postmodernism” is not neatly definable. One can, however, trace a few key terms and qualities of Postmodernism to give a sense of what the term implies: metafiction, parody, pastiche, intertextuality, the simulacrum, the mistrust of totalizing grand narratives or metanarratives, the fragmentation of the self, multiplicity and heterogeneity, the impossibility of representation, and the instability of language.

William S. Burroughs in Paris, 1959—the year his novel Naked Lunch was published. Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

To an extent, critics conflated the advent of this literature with the explosion of the deconstructionist and poststructuralist theories of Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes in their struggle to define the term Postmodern because of the shared notions of truth, self, and representation. There are shared concerns, but simply defining Postmodernism as the aesthetic realization of poststructuralist theory reduces it to a fixed definition, which goes against the very heart of Postmodernism. However, Postmodernism’s interrogative and demystifying impulse, its impact on the grand “truths” and dominant ideologies of American culture (historical and contemporary), and its questioning of the unified, cohesive self—or the static and culturally sanctioned identity commonly put forth in traditional narratives—can be traced in the literary production of American Postmodern writers.

Embedded in the swell of Postmodern theory was the realization that, at bottom, Postmodern literature is a reaction to and against conventional narratives and the values that inform those narratives. In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979), the French theorist Jean-François Lyotard posits that Modernism embraces totalizing narratives that legitimize a unified, rational subject, coherent meaning, and totalizing knowledge or truth, while Postmodernism questions and subverts those grand narratives. Furthermore, the self is simply a construction of language and culture. Any system that reduces human subjectivity to neat, tight, static categories of being is unreliable. There is no longer any cohesive or totalizing narrative. Truth is not universal, but local.

In American Postmodern fiction, then, there is an explosion of the subject and of form to accommodate the Postmodern condition. Narrative is often nonlinear, nonrational, indeterminate, fragmentary, and open-ended. Furthermore, characters within these narratives cannot claim a unified and coherent subjectivity because the author cannot claim that for himself. The persona of the author self-consciously emerges as a character in the text who critiques the narrative, a strategy termed “metafiction.” Characters themselves question their function in the world of the text and their position in the world at large. The presence of the author and the idea that narrative is simply a construction are emphasized in Postmodern fiction. Consequently, narrative truth is presented as questionable and unreliable.

Other key terms associated with Postmodernism are simulacra, intertextuality, and pastiche. Jean Baudrillard, in Simulation and Simulacra (1995), argues that in Postmodern times, there is no longer a “real” that we can embrace; even though we model our own subjectivities and narratives on the real, it is only an imagined real. In fact, we find that the real has never existed, but only its image; this is the simulacrum.

Another central idea in Postmodern theory is intertextuality, which is achieved through pastiche and parody. Frederic Jameson, in Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1984), insists that in the Postmodern condition, we can no longer embrace the ideological and unified narratives of the past, for these narratives have lost all meaning and power. According to Jameson, Postmodernists replaced this ideological foundation and deeply personal style with pastiche, the superficial imitation of dead styles. Postmodern art is simply a piecemeal regurgitation of past forms, empty and signifying nothing.

Linda Hutcheon, in The Politics of Postmodernism (1989), replaces the term pastiche with parody. In many Postmodern novels, genre and narrative are reminiscent of the past and yet critiqued and revised to adjust to Postmodern concerns. Therefore, intertextuality, through parody or pastiche, is a highly effective Postmodern strategy commonly found in American Postmodern literature.

In sum, Postmodern American literature is generally concerned with questioning and problematizing the ways in which a Modernist’s notion of the self or a Realist’s faith in representation lays claim to authenticity, unity, and universality. Selected literary texts of certain male writers have evolved into what is understood as the canon of Postmodern American literature. These writers have also been at the center of Postmodern literary criticism. More recently, however, women and minorities have entered the literary landscape of Postmodernism, have taken up Postmodernism as a viable alternative to conventional forms, and are pushing their way into critical consideration.

Topics for Discussion and Research

1. Postmodern writers regularly subvert literary conventions.
   Examine John Barth’s collection of short stories Lost in the Funhouse (1968) and discuss how Barth experiments with various elements of fiction: plot, setting, author, reader, and typography. See Barth’s discussion of Postmodern literature in The Friday Book (1997), particularly “The Literature of Exhaustion,” for greater insight into his aesthetic motivations.
2. Several Postmodern writers draw attention to the process of writing fiction or the constructed nature of works of literature.
   Read Donald Barthelme’s Snow White and analyze the ways in which Barthelme updates and revises the popular fairy tale. See Linda Hutcheon’s discussion of parody and pastiche in The Politics of Postmodernism (1989) to analyze this typically Postmodern strategy.
3. Readers’ expectations are often frustrated in the Postmodern novel.
   Read Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and discuss the ways in which the ending denies closure for the reader and what impact that has on the text as a whole. See Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction (1989) for reasons why this lack of closure is a characteristic of Postmodern fiction and for more authors, like Pynchon, whose works are similarly open-ended.
4. Although Postmodern fiction signals a shift from Modernist fiction, there are still ties that bind the two types of literature.
   Fragmentation and literary experimentation are central concerns for both the Postmodernist and Modernist writer. Look at any Postmodern text and compare it to any experimental Modernist text (for example, the later works of William Faulkner, James Joyce, or Virginia Woolf) and trace the similarities and differences. See Ihab Habib Hassan’s The Postmodern Turn (1987) to discover the ways in which Postmodernism is simultaneously an extension and a rejection of Modernism.
5. The American literary Postmodern canon seems inundated with male writers.
   Look through Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology (1998) to locate women’s Postmodern American fiction. Analyze how women writers employ Postmodern strategies in their fiction. See Linda Nicholson’s Feminism/Postmodernism (1990) and Magali Cornier Michael’s Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post–World War II Fiction (1996) to research the overlapping concerns of feminism and Postmodernism.

Resources

Bibliography

• Larry McCaffery, ed., Postmodern Fiction: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986).
  Serves students of American Postmodernism from 1945 to 1970 as a useful roadmap to locating the works of the chief practitioners of that time period.

Criticism

• John Barth, The Friday Book (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
  A collection of his nonfiction essays about the nature of writing in a Postmodern era. In “Literature of Exhaustion” Barth argues that Postmodernism is a consequence of the “used-upness” of literature.
• Jean Baudrillard, Simulation and Simulacra, translated by Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
  A groundbreaking investigation of Postmodernism that introduces the concept of the simulacrum and its relationship to Postmodern culture.
• Paula Geyh, Fred Leebron, and Andrew Levy, eds., Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology (New York: Norton, 1998).
  Offers a wide collection of Postmodern works, including fiction, criticism, and other forms.
• Ihab Habib Hassan, The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1987).
  Explains the relationship between Modernism and Postmodernism and includes an oft-quoted list of features of both that serves to visually represent the differences between the two in a concise and very readable format.
• Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1989).
  Defends Postmodernism’s political impulse, particularly in the characteristic use of parody and historiographic metafiction, by using examples from literature, visual art, and architecture.
• Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” New Left Review, 146 (July–August 1984): 53–92.
  One of the most famous critiques of Postmodernism. Jameson’s article discusses the “depthlessness” of Postmodernism and its consequent reliance on pastiche, or the imitation of dead styles.
• Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
  A groundbreaking volume that introduces students of Postmodernism to the concept of the grand narrative and the petite narrative, and the institutional practice of legitimating knowledge through the use of metanarratives. Lyotard questions the credibility of any system of knowledge that claims to hold universal truth.
• Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London: Routledge, 1989).
  An indispensable study that focuses on Postmodernism as a literary practice rather than a time period, a cultural condition, or a religious era. McHale offers one of the first studies and the only comprehensive one devoted to the analysis of Postmodernist fiction, tracing its roots and development.
• Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post–World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
  Offers a historical view of the intersection of feminism and Postmodernism in literature. Tracing women’s experimental fiction after World War II, Cornier offers a glimpse of how women writers were adopting characteristically Postmodern practices in their fiction.
• Joseph P. Natoli and Linda Hutcheon, eds., A Postmodern Reader (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).
  A collection of many of the seminal critical and theoretical texts in Postmodern study. This hefty volume serves as an accessible and comprehensive primer on Postmodern intellectual theory and philosophy.
• Linda J. Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 1990).
  A broad and illuminating discussion of both feminism and Postmodernism as philosophies to highlight the similarities and differences between the two.

Categories: Literature, Novel Analysis

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