What is Postmodernism? Postmodernism is a term that encompasses a wide-range of developments in philosophy, film, architecture, art, literature, and culture. Originally a reaction to modernism, referring to the lack of artistic, intellectual, or cultural thought or organized principle. Started around 1940s, exact date is unknown. Peaked around the 1960s and 1970s

Postmodern Literature What is it? - Used to describe the different aspects of post WW2 literature (modernist literature). - There is not a clear and defined definition of postmodernism because of the little agreement of the concepts and characteristics and ideas within postmodernism.

Postmodernist Literature Postmodernist Literature contains a broad range of concepts and ideas that include: - responses to modernism and its ideas - responses to technological advances - greater diversity of cultures that leads to cultural pluralism. (small groups within a larger society maintain their culture identity). - reconceptualizations of society and history

Postmodern Literature There are a few similarities to modernist literature. Like modernist literature, both are usually told from an objective or omniscient point of view. Both literatures explore the external reality to examine the inner states of consciousness of the characters Both employ fragmentation in narrative and character construction

Postmodern Literature: Common Themes Irony, playfulness, black humor Patiche -Authors often combine multiple elements in the postmodern genre. Metafiction - Writing about writing, often used to undermine the authority of the author and to advance stories in unique ways. Paranoia -The belief that there is something out of the ordinary, while everything remains the same

Ken Kesey American author and countercultural figure Best known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and leader of The Merry Pranksters Merry Pranksters advocated LSD use and combined with multimedia performances, often with The Grateful Dead – these were known as the “Acid Tests.”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest In 1959, Kesey volunteered for what turned out to be a CIA-funded test on the effects of psychoactive drugs, namely LSD, on people at a Northern California veterans hospital, where he worked as a night aide on the psychiatric ward Kesey came to believe the men were not insane, but were institutionalized because they did not fit the conventional idea of how people were supposed to act. He also felt that the patients were subjected to a system that was not trying to help or cure them. One night, while working high on peyote, he hallucinated an Indian chief on the ward – leading him to create the narrator for the book

OFOTCN Topics Treatment of the “mentally ill” Man’s right to be an individual vs. society’s desire for conformity Depiction of women/minorities Symbolism in novel McMurphy as Christ-like figure Chief’s schizophrenia/hallucinations