Modernism vs. Post Modernism

Modernism

1900 - 1945

is an attempt to answer the question of how we best represent human experience in light of the catastrophic changes in the world

Modernization

arrived at different speeds in different parts of the world and also by divergent means, such as colonialist politics and economic necessities

Westernization

was considered a symbol of progress or modernization

Westernization ideals and conditions

the concept of individualism and democracy

attention to literacy and general education

private ownership in a thriving middle class

religious freedom

primacy of the scientific method

belief in the benefit of public institutions

the emancipation of women

Modernism is reaction to

generally regards works written between the two World Wars, often seen as a reaction against realism and naturalism.

Had its roots in at least four other “isms”: impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, and nihilism.

Post Modernism is in reaction

against modernism in the wake of the Second World War (with its disrespect for human rights) and may also imply a reaction to significant post-war events: the beginning of the Cold War, the civil rights movement in the U.S., postcolonialism, and rise of the personal computer.

Modernism relies

fragmentation, paradox, and questionable narrators.

fragmentation is seen as an existential crisis, or internal conflict, a problem that must be solved.

Modernist works try to uphold the idea

art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning which has been lost in modern life; art will do what other human institutions fail to do.

Postmodernists do not lament the ideas of

fragmentation, incoherence, but rather celebrates them.

Does not pretend that art can make meaning

Modernism involves a

quest for meaning in a chaotic world

the fragmentation and discontinuity of individual experiences often launch this quest for meaning, wholeness

Postmodernism makes fun of

the possibility of meaning

most novels often offer a parody of this quest

Modern authors

guide and control the reader’s response to their work

Postmodern writers

create an “open work” in which the reader must supply his own connections, work out alternative meanings, and provide his own (unguided") interpretation.

Modernist works attempt

to reveal profound truths of experience and life

to find depth and interior meaning beneath the surface of objects and events

postmodernist works reject

western values and beliefs as the only possible worldview, sees them as only a small part of the human experience

is suspicious of being ‘profound’ because such ideas are often based on a particularly Western value system

Modernism characteristics

uses images (“word pictures”) and symbols

uses colloquial language rather than formal language

utilizes figures of speech: hyperbole, personification, puns, unconventional use of metaphor, irony

non-linear or circular narratives, rationality, self-consciousness, cause-and-effect relationships, middle-class moral conventions and values

Postmodernism characteristics

uses irony, playfulness, and Black humor

treats serious subjects in a playful and humorous, tongue-in-cheek manner

Disjunction often characterizes the nature of the narrative

paranoia, metafiction, literary minimalism, magical realism, irrationality, self-reflexivity, simultaneity, and moral pluralism

Pastiche

to combine, or paste together, multiple elements

may be seen as a representation of the chaotic, pluralist, or information-drenched aspects of society.

may also be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on situations in postmodernity

metafiction

making the artificiality of art or the fictionality of fiction apparent to the reader

ambivalence

the ambiguous way that each side regards the other side.

the colonizer looks upon the colonized as inferior yet exotic while the colonized regard the colonizers as superior yet corrupt

Alterity

the state of being politically, culturally, linguistically, or religiously different from or ‘‘'other” than another group

colonial education

the process used by the colonizing power to educate those colonized in how to see the world and how to think

Ethnicity

the traits, values, beliefs, tastes, norms, behaviors, memories, and loyalties shared by a group, impacting identity

Hegemony

The power of the ruling class over the colonized through education and media, as well as economic and political control

The power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all

Hybridity

the new transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange

identity

one’s self-concept often involving national understanding and social mores

other

the group excluded and marginalized bot socially and psychologically

essentialism

the essence or “whatness” of something

suggests the practice of various groups deciding what is and isn’t a particular identity

exoticism

the process by which a cultural practice is made stimulating and exciting in its difference from the colonizer’s normal perspective

magical realism

the adaptation of western realist methods of literature in describing the imaginary life of indigenous cultures who experience the mythical, magical, and supernatural in a decidedly different fashion from Western ones

the weaving together elements we associate with European realism and elements we associate with the fabulous, where two worlds undergo a “closeness or near merging”

Mimicry

the means by which the colonized adapt the culture of the colonizer, but always in the process of changing it in important ways

orientalism

the process (from the late eighteenth century to the present) by which “the Orient” was constructed as an exotic other by European studies and culture.

It is not so much a true study of other cultures as it is broad Western generalization about Oriental, Islamic, and/or Asian cultures that tend to erode and ignore their substantial differences

semiotics

a system of signs by which one knows what something is

often provide the means by which a group defines itself or by which a colonializing power attempts to control and assimilate another group

subaltern

the lower or colonized classes who have little access to their own means of expression and are thus dependent upon the language and methods of the ruling class to express themselves

worlding

the process by which a person, family, culture, or person is brought into dominant Eurocentric/western global society