Literary History Of Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man

Literary History of The Invisible Man The novel, The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, falls into the category of modernism and postmodernism movement. In order to fathom both types of literature, comprehending both is necessary. Modernism evolved during, but mainly after Word War 1, which caused many to see the world through a harsher lens (Some Characteristics of Modernism). Although the postmodernist movement evolved after World War II, another devastating period of time, it demonstrated a more optimistic outlook on events (Postmodernism). The development of modernism began in Britain and America in the 1890’s, however, it was not widely seen until the 1900’s, but it became less popular around the 1950’s. (Literary History- Modernism).

This movement was more “playful with the world’s insanity,” (Understanding Modernism and Postmodernism). Postmodernism is concerned “with questions of the organization on knowledge” (Postmodernism). Postmodernist writing differed from modernist writing because it rejected to conform to any popular taste (Writers History- Postmodernism). To do this, postmodernism used a variety of writing techniques: irony, pastiche, intertextuality, metafiction, temporal distortion, paranoia, maximalism, and faction (A List of Postmodern Characteristics). Postmodern authors used irony, playfulness and black humor as the “hallmarks of their style” (A List Of Postmodern Characteristics). They would often treat serious events like World War II, and the Cold War as humorous subjects. Many postmodern authors would use pastiche to create a new narrative voice. Pastiche is defined as the taking of various ideas from previous writings and pasting them together to make new styles. An important element of postmodernism is intertextuality, or its acknowledgment of previous literary works. The intertextuality of certain works attempts to “comment on the situation in which both literature and society found themselves in the second half of the twentieth century,” (A List of Postmodern Characteristics). Many postmodern authors used metafiction in their writing to make the reader aware of its fictionality. Authors would also use this technique to