The Maltese Falcon

In San Francisco during the late 1920s, the beautiful Miss Wonderly arrives at Samuel Spade and
Miles Archer’s detective agency. She asks the detectives to follow a man named Floyd Thursby, who
she claims has run off with her younger sister Corinne. Eager to get closer with Wonderly, Archer
agrees to do the job while Spade, suspicious of the woman, mocks his partner’s rashness.
That evening, Spade awakes to a phone call telling him that his partner has been killed. When he
arrives at the crime scene, Spade talks with the police officer Tom Polhaus about the possibility that
Thursby killed Archer. An hour after Spade returns to his apartment, Polhaus and Lieutenant
Dundy, an arrogant and brash cop, show up at his door with questions about the murder. The cops
reveal that Thursby has also been killed, thirty minutes after Spade left the site of Archer’s murder,
and its clear they think it is possible that Spade killed Thursby in revenge.
At his office the following day, Spade and Archer’s wife, Iva Archer, discuss the secret affair they’ve
been having behind Archer’s back. After she leaves, Spade goes to meet Wonderly at her hotel,
where he discovers her real name is Brigid O’Shaughnessy, she has no sister, and that Thursby was
a dangerous man she met in Hong Kong. Although she provides no further details, Spade agrees to
continue working for her.
Back at his office, Spade meets Joel Cairo who offers him $5,000 if he can retrieve a statue of a
falcon. Later, Spade and Brigid meet again, and Spade mentions his run in with Cairo and his
acceptance of the offer. Brigid, who appears to know Cairo, asks if Spade could arrange a meeting so
she can talk with Cairo. At the meeting, Cairo offers to pay Brigid for the bird, but she claims she
doesn’t have it in her possession yet. They also refer to Mr. G as the man who had Thursby killed.
After the meeting, Spade asks Brigid about her relationship to Cairo and the falcon, but she
sidetracks the conversation by seducing him. That night they sleep together.
The next day, Spade arrives at Cairo’s hotel and has a verbal confrontation with a young man named
Wilmer Cook who works for Mr. G. When Spade returns to his office, Mr. G, now identified as Casper
Gutman, calls to set up a meeting. At the meeting, Gutman reveals the bird’s long history and its
priceless value. Gutman tells Spade that he employed Brigid to steal it from a Russian general
Kemidov in Constantinople. Gutman says she betrayed him and is hiding the bird somewhere in San
Francisco. At this point, Spade realizes the drink that Gutman gave him is drugged and he falls to
the floor unconscious.
Twelve hours later, Spade wakes and searches Cairo’s hotel room for more clues, discovering that
the statue of the bird was on a ship called La Paloma that had arrived in San Francisco while he was
unconscious. A few minutes after Spade returns to his office, Captain Jacobi of La Paloma bursts
through the door, hands Spade a package, and then collapses and dies. Wrapped inside the package
is the black bird. After hiding the bird, Spade returns home, where Brigid is waiting for him at his
doorstep. They enter the apartment together and find Cairo, Wilmer, and Gutman waiting for them.
After Gutman pays Spade $10,000 for the bird, Spade calls his secretary, Effie Perine, to have her
drop the bird off at his apartment. As they wait, Spade convinces Gutman to betray Wilmer and
make him the “fall-guy” for all the murders so that the police will stop investigating. Effie arrives
with the bird and Gutman quickly realizes that it’s a fake and that Kemidov is in possession of the
real statue. In the confusion, Wilmer flees the apartment. After Gutman pulls out a gun and
demands that Spade return the $10,000, Spade gives him the money but first takes one thousand
dollar bill as a bribe for not calling the police. Determined to steal the bird from Kemidov, Gutman
and Cairo leave the apartment with plans to return to Constantinople.
Spade calls Polhaus and tells him that Wilmer killed Jacobi and Thursby at Gutman’s orders. With
the police arriving soon, Spade convinces Brigid to tell him the whole truth. She admits to killing
Archer in order to frame Thursby for the murder so that she could keep the profits from selling the
bird for herself. Although she pleads for mercy and tells Spade she loves him, Spade turns her over
to the police when they arrive because he wants justice for his dead partner. Spade gives the police
the thousand dollars as evidence of Gutman trying to bribe him, but the police inform Spade that
Wilmer has already killed Gutman in revenge for agreeing to betray him.
The next morning at the office, Effie cannot face Spade after he let the police arrest the woman who
loved him. As he settles in at his desk, Iva Archer arrives and Spade reluctantly lets her in.

The Maltese Falcon's plot develops through a series of deceptions. Most notably, Brigid
O’Shaughnessy masks her involvement in the murders by appearing powerless and in love with
Samuel Spade. Unlike Brigid, who hides her criminal behavior, the arch-villain Casper Gutman
openly discusses his desire for the statue of the Maltese falcon. Although Gutman does not mask his
law-breaking, he does hide behind his supposed respect for plain speaking in order to perform
other deceptions, like drugging Spade and using his daughter, Rhea Gutman, as bait. Even Spade, the
novel’s protagonist, only succeeds in apprehending the criminals by deceiving them into thinking
that he is a corrupt detective. While Spade uses deceptions and lies, however, he ultimately does so
for justice rather than for wealth or personal gain. Spade is also the only character to see past other
people’s deceptions, possibly because he mistrusts almost everyone.
Characters in The Maltese Falcon also lie to themselves. Brigid, who never admits to the lies, often
tells Spade that she herself can’t tell the difference between when she’s telling the truth and when
she isn’t. Likewise, in the story Spade tells Brigid, Flitcraft lies to himself about the inevitability of
death. Spade, on the other hand, remains largely honest with himself, never hiding his dislike for his
dead partner or deceiving himself into believing that Brigid’s love is real.
In terms of the overall narrative, Spade’s pursuit of the truth becomes entwined with finding the
statue of the Maltese falcon. The falcon itself represents the final truths for which Spade searches.
Yet, as we learn at the novel’s conclusion, even the falcon is a lie, suggesting that no ultimate truths
exist. Likewise, although the novel appears to end with Spade revealing the truth behind all the
major deceptions, a final uncertainty remains about the unknowable inner feelings of the
characters. For example, Spade does not know if Brigid loves him or, even, if he truly loves her.
Finally, the novel is written in the third-person objective, which means Hammet presents most
information through scene descriptions and dialogue instead of through the inner thoughts of the
characters. Without access to the characters’ thoughts or feelings, the reader becomes like a
detective, judging each character’s motives, truthfulness, and integrity. Until the last chapter where
Hammet reveals Spade’s unerring sense of justice, the reader must guess whether or not Spade is
just as crooked as the villains.
The Maltese Falcon explores the importance of a personal code of ethics in a world of incompetent
authorities and an imperfect criminal justice system. Throughout the novel, Samuel Spade calls into
question the police’s ability to apprehend the right criminals. Without any substantial evidence,
Lieutenant Dundy changes from thinking that Spade killed Floyd Thursby to thinking that he killed
Miles Archer. Spade even mocks District Attorney Bryan for concocting an unsupported mob-war
motive for Thursby’s murder.

In contrast with the police, Spade works outside the limits of the law, getting justice by deceptive
means. Although Spade will sleep with his partner’s wife and lie to catch the criminals, he maintains
a strict code of ethics. Spade’s decision to hand Brigid O’Shaughnessy over to the police shows that
his desire for justice outweighs, for him, even the possibility of finding love. Spade also risks
provoking the police when he refuses to divulge his client’s personal information because doing so
would be against his personal code (though it’s also possible to argue that Spade withholds this
information for other reasons, such as wanting to prevent the police from mishandling the case).
While Spade feels he has done the right thing by turning in Brigid, the novel ends with Effie Perine,
Spade’s assistant, feeling disgust at him for betraying the woman he loves. Effie’s reaction
illustrates the limitations of justice, specifically how justice cannot always exist alongside loyalty to
loved ones.

In The Maltese Falcon, greed is the driving force that motivates most of the characters. In the most
obvious example, Brigid O’Shaughnessy kills Miles Archer so she can frame Floyd Thursby and keep
the profits from selling the statue for herself. Casper Gutman, meanwhile, represents the
embodiment of greed. The other characters refer to him as “Mr. G” in reference to his large “gut” as
well as his greed, linking his excess desire for money with gluttony. Even Gutman’s pistol is covered
with jewels, suggesting that violence and greed are counterparts of one another. Greed so corrupts
Gutman that he is willing to betray Wilmer Cook, who he says is like a son to him, in order to
continue his pursuit of the Maltese falcon. While Spade betrays Brigid for justice, Gutman turns on
Wilmer for money.
In contrast, Spade struggles to and eventually does control his greed. Throughout the novel, Spade
never misses an opportunity to make some quick cash. However, Spade ultimately hands over to
the police the bribe he pretended to take from Gutman. The only major character who seems
beyond the grasp of greed is Effie Perine who warns Spade that if he takes advantage of Brigid by
taking her money without offering help, then she will lose all respect for him.
In addition to being a symbol of the illusory nature of truth, the Maltese falcon also symbolizes
greed. The statue drives people to murder and betrayal, but, in the end, the statue is worthless. As a
result, the statue also reveals the hollowness of greed itself, how it drives people to actions that
lead only to isolation or self-destruction.

Most of the characters in The Maltese Falcon represent a different perspective on what it means to
be a man or woman. For example, Samuel Spade represents the epitome of manliness. Multiple
women desire him, no man is a challenge for him in a fight, and his tough exterior and unwavering
sense of honor exemplify a certain type of masculinity. The novel idealizes his masculinity,
essentially without criticism, even appearing to value his emotional detachment from the people
around him.
Hammet’s construction of masculinity within the novel contrasts with how he represents gay
characters. The various descriptions of Joel Cairo as effeminate imply that feminine characteristics
in men are somehow both unnatural and inherently immoral. When Spade wants to insult Cairo and
Wilmer Cook, he alludes to their sexual orientation in an attempt to emasculate them. While Spade
has a rough and frank manner of speaking, Casper Gutman speaks in a refined way, making him
seem more effeminate.

Whereas Spade is a clear and singular representative of manliness, the novel’s three women
represent different perspectives on femininity. Brigid O’Shaughnessy appears to be Spade’s
feminine counterpart since she is his equal match in cunning and sexual allure, but she differs from
Spade in her lack of morals and honor. She is the stereotypical “femme fatale,” a sexist depiction of a
woman who seduces men with deceit and causes their downfall. Although men like Gutman and
Cairo are also disloyal, they lack Spade's manly traits, making disloyalty seem like only a feminine
trait. Like Brigid, Iva Archer appears disloyal by cheating on her husband and lying to Spade about
her actions. However, unlike Brigid, she lacks cunning or resourcefulness and makes her decisions
based on emotions like love and jealousy rather than honor or greed. Finally, Effie Perine’s physical
appearance makes her appear masculine. Since the novel links femininity with deceit, it is
unsurprising that a woman portrayed as masculine is the most trustworthy woman in the book.
Effie's femininity is complicated by the supportive role she takes on with Spade, whom she nurtures
as a mother would. Interacting with her as if she were family, Spade does not see her as a possible
romantic partner even though she is the most trustworthy and ethically-minded woman in the
novel.

While most characters don’t respond with much emotion to the deaths that occur around them,
Samuel Spade’s story about Flitcraft reveals the importance of how people cope with mortality.
Spade tells Brigid O’Shaughnessy about a former case of his in which a man named Flitcraft realizes
how death can strike at any moment. After having this realization, Flitcraft leaves his family and
wanders aimlessly around the United States before settling down with a new wife who resembles
the one he left. Spade says that Flitcraft abandoned his realization about the random inevitability of
death so that he could go back to living a life like his old one. For Spade, this story reveals how most
people try to forget about death in order to go on living their ordinary lives.
Spade, however, copes with mortality by trying to stay in control of every facet of his life rather
than by simply ignoring the reality of death. Yet, death is something that no one can ultimately
predict, avoid, or control. Thus, his desire to stay in control can be understood as a way of coping
with his lack of control over death. Likewise, Spade’s last name refers to both the instrument used
to dig graves as well as a suit of cards, which connects the theme of death with that of the
randomness suggested by the cards.
Although Flitcraft had a brief moment of realization about death, the fact that his new life resembles
his old in all the significant ways illustrates how a person cannot escape their natural inclinations
or “fate.” Spade tells Brigid this story in order to indirectly explain that he knows she will not be
able to change her deceitful ways, because deception is in her nature. Spade also comes to a similar
realization about himself when he tells Brigid it would be against his nature to let her go free once
he’s finally obtained the evidence that proves her guilt.

In The Maltese Falcon, love fails to overcome the grim realities of deception and greed. For example,
Casper Gutman’s greed makes him betray Wilmer Cook despite Gutman’s supposed paternal love
and possible sexual attraction towards him. While it’s unclear what Gutman’s true feelings were for
Wilmer, Brigid O’Shaughnessy uses sex and affection as a kind of currency to get men to do what
she wants. Although by the end of the novel Brigid may have truly fallen in love with Samuel Spade,
he realizes that he cannot trust her love because her emotions are wrapped in lies and deceptions.
The novel also provides no model for a good marriage, since Iva Archer cheats on her husband,
Miles Archer, and Flitcraft leaves his family with no warning.
For Spade, romantic love appears to be an unattainable ideal since his mistrustfulness prevents him
from ever fully believing the inner and unknowable feelings of another person. As a result, Spade is
not willing to risk breaking his code of ethics for something as insubstantial as love. Likewise,
Spade tells Effie Perine he only knows how to interact with women through sex. Spade’s inability to
trust makes sex the only option for expressing affection or desire for a woman. Spade even implies
that sex, rather than deep affection or trust, is the only thing that sustains his relationship with Iva.
The last scene of the novel, therefore, ends with Spade having to decide if he will continue his
loveless relationship with Iva by marrying her as she desires. Yet what Spade does not realize is
that he already has a profound emotional attachment with Effie, which reveals that Spade can, at
the very least, know a kind of familial and nonsexual love for others.

The novel’s protagonist, Sam Spade is a handsome private detective. Although he sleeps with his
partner’s wife, Iva Archer, and struggles with an almost greedy desire for wealth, the novel reveals
his unshakable ethical integrity when he turns over his lover, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, to the police
for murdering his partner Miles Archer. A heavy drinker and always smoking or about to be
smoking, Spade is cunning, unbeatable in a fistfight, and mistrustful of almost everyone. He has
little respect for the authorities and is willing to bend the law to get to the truth, but his desire for
justice and his commitment to his personal code of ethics outweighs any other concern, including
love or money.

First introducing herself under a false backstory as Miss Wonderly, Brigid O’Shaughnessy employs
Sam Spade for protection against the criminal Casper Gutman. She is the novel’s master liar,
tricking men and women alike into thinking that she is on their side. In the past, she used her
attractiveness to convince Floyd Thursby to help her steal the Maltese falcon. Throughout the novel,
she pretends to be helpless, but Spade is never truly convinced by her deceitful performance.
Consumed by greed, Brigid kills Miles Archer in order to frame Thursby so that she would not have
to share with him the profits from selling the falcon. By the end of the novel, she claims to love Sam
Spade, though it is not entirely clear how true this is and how much she just wants to avoid going to
jail. Most likely the answer is some of both. Ultimately, greed and deceit lead to her imprisonment.
Postmodern literature
Postmodern literature is literature characterized by reliance on narrative techniques such as
fragmentation, paradox, and the unreliable narrator; and is often (though not exclusively) defined
as a style or a trend which emerged in the post–World War II era. Postmodern works are seen as a
response against dogmatic following of Enlightenment thinking and Modernist approaches to
literature.
Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, tends to resist definition or classification as
a "movement". However, works considered postmodern tend to engage with various modes of
critical theory, particularly reader-response and deconstructionist approaches, as well as ways of
subverting the implicit contract between author, text and reader.
While there is little consensus on the precise characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern
literature, as is often the case with artistic movements, postmodern literature is commonly defined
in relation to a precursor. In particular, postmodern writers are seen as reacting against the
precepts of modernism, and they often operate as literary "bricoleurs", parodying forms and styles
associated with modernist (and other) writers and artists. Postmodern works also tend to celebrate
chance over craft, and further employ metafiction to undermine the text's authority or authenticity.
Another characteristic of postmodern literature is the questioning of distinctions between high and
low culture through the use of pastiche, the combination of subjects and genres not previously
deemed fit for literature.

Common themes and techniques

Several themes and techniques are indicative of writing in the postmodern era. These themes and
techniques are often used together. For example, metafiction and pastiche are often used for irony.
These are not used by all postmodernists, nor is this an exclusive list of features.
Irony, playfulness, black humor
Linda Hutcheon claimed postmodern fiction as a whole could be characterized by the ironic quote
marks, that much of it can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. This irony, along with black humor and the
general concept of "play" (related to Derrida's concept or the ideas advocated by Roland Barthes in
The Pleasure of the Text) are among the most recognizable aspects of postmodernism. Though the
idea of employing these in literature did not start with the postmodernists (the modernists were
often playful and ironic), they became central features in many postmodern works. In fact, several
novelists later to be labeled postmodern were first collectively labeled black humorists: John Barth,
Joseph Heller, William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Bruce Jay Friedman, etc. It is common for
postmodernists to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way: for example, the way
Heller and Vonnegut address the events of World War II. The central concept of Heller's Catch-22 is
the irony of the now-idiomatic "catch-22", and the narrative is structured around a long series of
similar ironies. Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 in particular provides prime examples of
playfulness, often including silly wordplay, within a serious context. For example, it contains
characters named Mike Fallopian and Stanley Koteks and a radio station called KCUF, while the
novel as a whole has a serious subject and a complex structure.
Intertextuality
Since postmodernism represents a decentered concept of the universe in which individual works
are not isolated creations, much of the focus in the study of postmodern literature is on
intertextuality: the relationship between one text (a novel for example) and another or one text
within the interwoven fabric of literary history. Intertextuality in postmodern literature can be a
reference or parallel to another literary work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of
a style. In postmodern literature this commonly manifests as references to fairy tales—as in works
by Margaret Atwood, Donald Barthelme, and many others—or in references to popular genres such
as sci-fi and detective fiction. An early 20th century example of intertextuality which influenced
later postmodernists is "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges, a story with
significant references to Don Quixote which is also a good example of intertextuality with its
references to Medieval romances. Don Quixote is a common reference with postmodernists, for
example Kathy Acker's novel Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream. References to Don Quixote can also
be seen in Paul Auster's post-modern detective story, City of Glass. Another example of
intertextuality in postmodernism is John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor which deals with Ebenezer
Cooke's poem of the same name. Often intertextuality is more complicated than a single reference
to another text. Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice, for example, links Pinocchio to Thomas
Mann's Death in Venice. Also, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose takes on the form of a detective
novel and makes references to authors such as Aristotle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Borges.Some
critics point to the use of intertextuality as an indication of postmodernism's lack of originality and
reliance on clichés.
Pastiche
Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple
elements. In Postmodernist literature this can be a homage to or a parody of past styles. It can be
seen as a representation of the chaotic, pluralistic, or information-drenched aspects of postmodern
society. It can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on
situations in postmodernity: for example, William S. Burroughs uses science fiction, detective
fiction, westerns; Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales; Giannina Braschi mixes
poetry, commercials, musical, manifesto, and drama; Umberto Eco uses detective fiction, fairy tales,
and science fiction, and so on. Though pastiche commonly involves the mixing of genres, many
other elements are also included (metafiction and temporal distortion are common in the broader
pastiche of the postmodern novel). In Robert Coover's 1977 novel The Public Burning, Coover
mixes historically inaccurate accounts of Richard Nixon interacting with historical figures and
fictional characters such as Uncle Sam and Betty Crocker. Pastiche can instead involve a
compositional technique, for example the cut-up technique employed by Burroughs. Another
example is B. S. Johnson's 1969 novel The Unfortunates; it was released in a box with no binding so
that readers could assemble it however they chose.
Metafiction
Metafiction is essentially writing about writing or "foregrounding the apparatus", as it's typical of
deconstructionist approaches, making the artificiality of art or the fictionality of fiction apparent to
the reader and generally disregards the necessity for "willing suspension of disbelief." For example,
postmodern sensibility and metafiction dictate that works of parody should parody the idea of
parody itself.
Metafiction is often employed to undermine the authority of the author, for unexpected narrative
shifts, to advance a story in a unique way, for emotional distance, or to comment on the act of
storytelling. For example, Italo Calvino's 1979 novel If on a winter's night a traveler is about a
reader attempting to read a novel of the same name. Kurt Vonnegut also commonly used this
technique: the first chapter of his 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five is about the process of writing
the novel and calls attention to his own presence throughout the novel. Though much of the novel
has to do with Vonnegut's own experiences during the firebombing of Dresden, Vonnegut
continually points out the artificiality of the central narrative arc which contains obviously fictional
elements such as aliens and time travel. Similarly, Tim O'Brien's 1990 novel/story collection The
Things They Carried, about one platoon's experiences during the Vietnam War, features a character
named Tim O'Brien; though O'Brien was a Vietnam veteran, the book is a work of fiction and
O'Brien calls into question the fictionality of the characters and incidents throughout the book. One
story in the book, "How to Tell a True War Story", questions the nature of telling stories. Factual
retellings of war stories, the narrator says, would be unbelievable, and heroic, moral war stories
don't capture the truth. David Foster Wallace in The Pale King writes that the copyright page claims
it is fiction only for legal purposes, and that everything within the novel is non-fiction. He employs a
character in the novel named David Foster Wallace.
Fabulation
Fabulation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with metafiction and relates to pastiche and
Magic Realism. It is a rejection of realism which embraces the notion that literature is a created
work and not bound by notions of mimesis and verisimilitude. Thus, fabulation challenges some
traditional notions of literature—the traditional structure of a novel or role of the narrator, for
example—and integrates other traditional notions of storytelling, including fantastical elements,
such as magic and myth, or elements from popular genres such as science fiction. By some accounts,
the term was coined by Robert Scholes in his book The Fabulators. Strong examples of fabulation in
contemporary literature are found in Giannina Braschi's United States of Banana and Salman
Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Poioumena
Poioumenon (plural: poioumena; from Ancient Greek: ποιού μενον, "product") is a term coined by
Alastair Fowler to refer to a specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of
creation. According to Fowler, "the poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the
boundaries of fiction and reality—the limits of narrative truth."[32] In many cases, the book will be
about the process of creating the book or includes a central metaphor for this process. Common
examples of this are Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy,
which is about the narrator's frustrated attempt to tell his own story. A significant postmodern
example is Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962), in which the narrator, Kinbote, claims he is writing
an analysis of John Shade's long poem "Pale Fire", but the narrative of the relationship between
Shade and Kinbote is presented in what is ostensibly the footnotes to the poem. Similarly, the self-
conscious narrator in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children parallels the creation of his book to the
creation of chutney and the creation of independent India. Anagrams (1970), by David R. Slavitt,
describes a week in the life of a poet and his creation of a poem which, by the last couple of pages,
proves remarkably prophetic. In The Comforters, Muriel Spark's protagonist hears the sound of a
typewriter and voices that later may transform into the novel itself. Jan Křesadlo purports to be
merely the translator of a "chrononaut's" handed down homeric Greek science fiction epic, the
Astronautilia. Other postmodern examples of poioumena include Samuel Beckett's trilogy (Molloy,
Malone Dies and The Unnamable); Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook; John Fowles's Mantissa;
William Golding's The Paper Men; Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew; and S. D. Chrostowska's
Permission.
Historiographic metafiction
Linda Hutcheon coined the term "historiographic metafiction" to refer to works that fictionalize
actual historical events or figures; notable examples include The General in His Labyrinth by
Gabriel García Má rquez (about Simó n Bolívar), Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (about Gustave
Flaubert), Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (which features such historical figures as Harry Houdini,
Henry Ford, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Booker T. Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl
Jung), and Rabih Alameddine's Koolaids: The Art of War which makes references to the Lebanese
Civil War and various real life political figures. Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon also employs
this concept; for example, a scene featuring George Washington smoking marijuana is included.
John Fowles deals similarly with the Victorian period in The French Lieutenant's Woman. Kurt
Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five has been said to feature a metafictional, "Janus-headed" outlook in
the way the novel seeks to represent both actual historical events from World War II while, at the
same time, problematizes the very notion of doing exactly that.
Temporal distortion
This is a common technique in modernist fiction: fragmentation and nonlinear narratives are
central features in both modern and postmodern literature. Temporal distortion in postmodern
fiction is used in a variety of ways, often for the sake of irony. Historiographic metafiction (see
above) is an example of this. Distortions in time are central features in many of Kurt Vonnegut's
nonlinear novels, the most famous of which is perhaps Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five
becoming "unstuck in time". In Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed deals playfully with anachronisms,
Abraham Lincoln using a telephone for example. Time may also overlap, repeat, or bifurcate into
multiple possibilities. For example, in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" from Pricksongs &
Descants, the author presents multiple possible events occurring simultaneously—in one section
the babysitter is murdered while in another section nothing happens and so on—yet no version of
the story is favored as the correct version.
Magic realism
Magic realism may be literary work marked by the use of still, sharply defined, smoothly painted
images of figures and objects depicted in a surrealistic manner. The themes and subjects are often
imaginary, somewhat outlandish and fantastic and with a certain dream-like quality. Some of the
characteristic features of this kind of fiction are the mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and
the fantastic or bizarre, skillful time shifts, convoluted and even labyrinthine narratives and plots,
miscellaneous use of dreams, myths and fairy stories, expressionistic and even surrealistic
description, arcane erudition, the element of surprise or abrupt shock, the horrific and the
inexplicable. It has been applied, for instance, to the work of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian who
in 1935 published his Historia universal de la infamia, regarded by many as the first work of magic
realism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Má rquez is also regarded as a notable exponent of this
kind of fiction—especially his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Cuban Alejo Carpentier is
another described as a "magic realist". Postmodernists such as Salman Rushdie and Italo Calvino
commonly use Magic Realism in their work.[5][24] A fusion of fabulism with magic realism is
apparent in such early 21st-century American short stories as Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling",
Dan Chaon's "Big Me", Jacob M. Appel's "Exposure", and Elizabeth Graver's "The Mourning Door".
Technoculture and hyperreality
Fredric Jameson called postmodernism the "cultural logic of late capitalism". "Late capitalism"
implies that society has moved past the industrial age and into the information age. Likewise, Jean
Baudrillard claimed postmodernity was defined by a shift into hyperreality in which simulations
have replaced the real. In postmodernity people are inundated with information, technology has
become a central focus in many lives, and our understanding of the real is mediated by simulations
of the real. Many works of fiction have dealt with this aspect of postmodernity with characteristic
irony and pastiche. For example, Don DeLillo's White Noise presents characters who are
bombarded with a "white noise" of television, product brand names, and clichés. The cyberpunk
fiction of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and many others use science fiction techniques to
address this postmodern, hyperreal information bombardment.
Paranoia
Perhaps demonstrated most famously and effectively in Heller's Catch-22, the sense of paranoia,
the belief that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring
postmodern theme. For the postmodernist, no ordering is extremely dependent upon the subject,
so paranoia often straddles the line between delusion and brilliant insight. Pynchon's The Crying of
Lot 49, long-considered a prototype of postmodern literature, presents a situation which may be
"coincidence or conspiracy – or a cruel joke". This often coincides with the theme of technoculture
and hyperreality. For example, in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, the character Dwayne
Hoover becomes violent when he's convinced that everyone else in the world is a robot and he is
the only human.
Maximalism
Dubbed maximalism by some critics, the sprawling canvas and fragmented narrative of such
writers as Dave Eggers and David Foster Wallace has generated controversy on the "purpose" of a
novel as narrative and the standards by which it should be judged. The postmodern position is that
the style of a novel must be appropriate to what it depicts and represents, and points back to such
examples in previous ages as Gargantua by François Rabelais and the Odyssey of Homer, which
Nancy Felson hails as the exemplar of the polytropic audience and its engagement with a work.
Many modernist critics, notably B.R. Myers in his polemic A Reader's Manifesto, attack the
maximalist novel as being disorganized, sterile and filled with language play for its own sake, empty
of emotional commitment—and therefore empty of value as a novel. Yet there are counter-
examples, such as Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest where
postmodern narrative coexists with emotional commitment.

Minimalism
Literary minimalism can be characterized as a focus on a surface description where readers are
expected to take an active role in the creation of a story. The characters in minimalist stories and
novels tend to be unexceptional. Generally, the short stories are "slice of life" stories. Minimalism,
the opposite of maximalism, is a representation of only the most basic and necessary pieces, specific
by economy with words. Minimalist authors hesitate to use adjectives, adverbs, or meaningless
details. Instead of providing every minute detail, the author provides a general context and then
allows the reader's imagination to shape the story. Among those categorized as postmodernist,
literary minimalism is most commonly associated with Jon Fosse and especially Samuel Beckett.
Fragmentation
Fragmentation is another important aspect of postmodern literature. Various elements, concerning
plot, characters, themes, imagery and factual references are fragmented and dispersed throughout
the entire work. In general, there is an interrupted sequence of events, character development and
action which can at first glance look modern. Fragmentation purports, however, to depict a
metaphysically unfounded, chaotic universe. It can occur in language, sentence structure or
grammar. In Z213: Exit, a fictional diary by Greek writer Dimitris Lyacos, one of the major
exponents of fragmentation in postmodern literature, an almost telegraphic style is adopted,
devoid, in most part, of articles and conjunctions. The text is interspersed with lacunae and
everyday language combines with poetry and biblical references leading up to syntax disruption
and distortion of grammar. A sense of alienation of character and world is created by a language
medium invented to form a kind of intermittent syntax structure which complements the
illustration of the main character's subconscious fears and paranoia in the course of his exploration
of a seemingly chaotic world.