Postmodern Literature: Key Characteristics and Authors

Core Characteristics of Postmodernism

• Topics dealing with the complex absurdity of contemporary life: moral and philosophical relativism, loss of faith in political and moral authority, and alienation.
• Employing black humor, parody, the grotesque, absurdity, and travesty.
• Erasing boundaries between "low" and "high" culture.
• Lack of a grand narrative.
• Avoiding traditional closure of themes or situations.
• Condemning commercialism, hedonism, mass production, and economic globalism.
• Reality represented through language.
• Openness to spiritual matters and acceptance of different lifestyles.

Language, Power, and Social Classifications

Postmodernism emphasizes the role of language through the use of power, relations, and motivations. In particular, it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, and white versus black.

Conflict and the Absence of Absolute Truth

Postmodernist authors place the characters of their stories into situations that demonstrate the constant struggle between man vs. man, man vs. self, and man vs. society.

Postmodernists do not believe that there is an absolute truth. This means they do not believe that every person must believe in the same God; they believe individuals can believe whatever they want to believe.

Notable Postmodernist Authors

Roald Dahl: His short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, often very dark humor. Key works include The Witches, George's Marvellous Medicine, and Matilda.

Albert Camus: Awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature for his important literary writings that addressed the problems of the human conscience in our time. He addressed these issues in his writings against capital punishment, notably in the essay "Réflexions sur la Guillotine" (Reflections on the Guillotine).

Man, Nature, and the Modern World

The relationship between man and nature, as conveyed through postmodern literature, is the struggle between man and the modern world—a world full of growing technology and increasing death and destruction.

• Man uses technology to lay waste to nature's limited resources.
• "Mother Nature" is thought to have been destroyed by the products of man.

Common Themes in Postmodernism

Some of the themes presented in postmodernism include:

• Disunity and a cynical worldview.
• No fixed point of reference.
• The church viewed as being a "problem" due to its close association with modernity.
• Consumerism, uncertainty, and skepticism of the future.