Modern Literature And Post-Modernism

The late twentieth century literary movement in American history was called Post-Modernism. This literary movement emerged right after the Second World War and lasted from 1945 through 1970. This movement is said to be the reaction of Enlightenment thinkers during the literary movement of Modernism. Post-Modernist writers main focus was on describing reality by time, place, science, religion and experiences. After this new writing style become popular, it started to affect the everyday life of American society. People originally believed that the world was a very unified and conformed place, but once they realized it was inaccurate, they started to figure out a new way to live a more realistic life.
Post-modernism used a variety of different themes and literary devices including the theme of memory, and literary devices such as symbolism, irony, and motifs. Memory is one of the greatest gifts a person can have, and it can have many different roles. It can be good, bad, happy or sad memory but it is a gift people are able to look back on to remember the past. In the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the short story The Fire Balloons by Ray Bradbury, and the poem One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, all of these pieces of literature have to do with memory and are related with the literary devices of symbolism, irony and motifs.
Symbolism is a major part in each piece of literature. In the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut a important symbol is “so it goes”. This symbolizes the loss a person has had in their life, such as a death. Every time the character Billy witnesses a death, it said, “so it goes” (Vonnegut 148) after it. This represents that people cannot control what is going to happen next, and we shou...

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...im has come unstuck in time it ends like this poo-tee-weet” (Vonnegut 28). One Art’s motif describes that even if we do not care about the loss we will always have some memory of it. “The art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like disaster” (Bishop). The reader knows that trying to forget about the past can be difficult no matter how hard they try the memories that are unimportant always seem to stay. Memory is a great gift but sometimes it can cause bad memories and pain, the quotes from Kurt Vonnegut, and Elizabeth Bishop are related to it. Each quotes talks about how painful memories can be and how they have affected their lives and others so far.
Memory is one of the greatest gifts a person can have, even though they can cause people pain and bad memories occasionally. People will always have their good memories to look back on.