Literary Postmodernism Grows out of modernism Emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing.. HOW seeing, reading, or perception itself takes place, rather that on WHAT is perceived Multiple narrative perspectives are used instead of apparent objectivity of omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view and clear cut moral positions.

Blurring of distinctions between genres (prose seems more poetic, poetry more documentary) Emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives and random seeming collages of different materials Minimalist designs and a favoring of spontaneity and discovery in creation

Key difference between modernism and postmodernism in attitudes towards trends: – Modernism: Fragmented view of human subjectivity and history as something tragic to be lamented and mourned as a loss. Texts try to uphold idea that art can provide unity, coherence,and meaning lost in most of modern life. – Postmodernism: Celebrates fragmentation and incoherence. Embraces the possibility that the world may be meaningless and does not pretend or assert that art can make meaning. Plays with and experiments with the nonsense to create new works of art.

Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller (1949) “The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out. Whoever is writing in the United States is using the American Dream as an ironical pole of his story. People elsewhere tend to accept, to a far greater degree anyway, that the conditions of life are hostile to man’s pretensions.”

Pre-Reading Questions How is the American Dream characteristic of American ideals and philosophy? What are the differences between the materialistic and the idealistic values associated with the American Dream? What is your definition of a salesman? How is a salesman different from someone in another occupation? What attitudes do you think a salesman should have to be successful? What attitudes would hinder him? What effect do the expectations of parent have on the behavior of their children? In what ways might parental expectations be beneficial? In what ways might they be detrimental?

Tragedy Fundamentally serious fiction involving the downfall of a hero or heroine In ancient Greek tragedy, three main themes are evident: – Isolation—character of greater than ordinary importance becomes isolated from the community – Violation and reestablishment of order (the neutralizing of the violent act may take the form of revenge) – Passion—a character may embody a passion too great for the cosmic order to tolerate

Tragic Hero/Tragic Figure—protagonist who comes to a bad end as a result of his own behavior, usually caused by a specific personality disorder or flaw or moral weakness Tragic Flaw—the defect in the hero that leads to the downfall Tragic Irony—essence of tragedy, in which the most noble and deserving person, because of the very grounds of his or her excellence, dies in defeat

Introductory Notes: Arthur Miller Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning playwright of over 30 plays Questions “death and betrayal and injustice and how we are to account for this little life of ours” Believes the fear of being displaced or having our image of what and who we are destroyed in is best known to the common man, saying, “It is time that we, who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possible lead in our time—the heart and sprit of the average man.”

Arthur Miller: On Tragedy Inspired by Greek tragedians, particularly Sophocles “I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity” “From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his society” Considered common man “as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were”