Post-modern Fiction

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Recommended: Atonement and McEwan

Pre 20th century novels were mostly adopting a linear narrative, which was either chronological or according to structure of a beginning middle and end. By not conforming to the traditional method of structuring a novel they were attempting to create a mimesis of reality. At an individual and worldly level, religion viewed birth as the beginning and perhaps death as the end. On a greater scale perhaps it viewed the creation of the world as the beginning and according to the eschatological view, the ‘end of time’ or the ‘end of the world’. Post modernist believed that this view did not reflect reality and therefore attempted to adopt a similar mimesis in their works. They attempted to use fragmentation in the novels to reflect life as being more complicated. In the Bible the quote ‘in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight’ (King James Bible, Proverb 3:6) depicts life as an easy path as long as though you submit to God. Pre-modernist England saw two World Wars where between 1914-1945, 1270009 soldiers died (Hoffmann, (2001), pg.2). Although the loss of the soldiers was paramount, the psychological and economic effect was still felt by those during the postmodernist era. The fragmentation in novels heavily reflected these repercussions of war, rather than the alleged ‘straight path’ the Christians were promised by God in the Bible.

One of the most prominent changes that took place during the post modernist era was the focus on the self as opposed to a more societal and community type approach. Religion in particular has centred a great majority if the beliefs on the idea was about doing good to others, ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you’ (King James Bible, ...

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...rnism to Postmodernism: Concepts and Strategies of Postmodern American Fiction: Postmodern Studies 38; Textxet Studies in Comparative Literature. Cambridge, MA
8. Hopper, K, (2009) Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist. Cork University Press, Ireland,
9. Hutcheon, L. (2004) A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. NY: Routledge
10. King James Bible
11. McCaffery, L. (1986) Postmodern Fiction: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide. Greenwood Press: London
12. McEwan, I (2002). Atonement. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
13. McHale, B, (1987) Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge
14. Orr, M. (2003)Intertextuality: debates and contexts. Wiley-Blackwell, New Yorr
15. Waugh, P. (1984) Metafiction: the theory and practice of self-conscious fiction.Routledge,
16. Winterson. J, (1991). Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Grove/Atlantic, Inc

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