POSTMODERNISM IN LITERATURE

INTERTEXTUALITY

The poet John Donne once wrote that "no man is an island," and for postmodernists,
no text is an island. Postmodernism is all about the connections between texts, including the
various ways in which one text references another (or many others). There are all kinds of
techniques that authors can use in order to highlight these links, including pastiche, parody,
quotes, and direct references, as well as subtler nods to other material. What these techniques
have in common is that they're examples of intertextuality.
Julia Kristeva coined the term "intertextuality" in 1966, explaining that there are two
relationships going on whenever we read a text: there's the relationship between us and the
author (the horizontal axis) and between the text and other texts (the vertical axis). It's the
vertical axis that gives us our definition of intertextuality; still, both axes emphasize that no text
exists in a bubble and that we need to recognize how existing works shape current texts and
readings.
Intertextuality feeds into some of the big questions about literature—e.g., can a text be
seen in isolation or do we need to look at how it relates to other texts? For postmodernists, it's
clear that no text exists in isolation and that works of literature can only be created using stuff
that already exists. Looking at it from this perspective, then, intertextuality is unavoidable:
postmodern authors may enjoy drawing attention to it but it's always there. As the theorist
Roland Barthes sums up, a text is "a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none
of them original, blend and clash".
Another question that's been discussed a lot over the years is whether the author is in full
control of the text, or whether the reader plays an active role. On the one hand, it's the author
who weaves together this collection of intertextual references; however, we as readers make a
mental connection. This act involves recognizing conventions (academic types call these
"codes") and is something we do naturally: when we read or view any kind of text, it goes into
our memory bank and shapes our responses to other texts.
Whatever form it takes, intertextuality treats literature as a network and invites us to pick
up on how a text relates to other texts. This textiness sets postmodernism apart from some other
literary movements that are all about realism and naturalism. Postmodernism doesn't try to
disguise that a text is a construct, and that's why intertextuality is so postmo2dern—it reminds us
of the very thing that some other kinds of texts try to keep under wraps.

METAFICTION

Here's a term that gets tossed around quite a bit.

First used by William H. Gass in a 1970 essay, "Philosophy and the Form of Fiction," the
word "metafiction" signals the kind of text that emphasizes its status as a text. Metafiction is
100% aware of the fact that it's fiction—some literature may try to be naturalistic or realistic, but
postmodernism doesn't hide what it is.
In fact, it flaunts it.
Metafiction is a prime example of the self-aware vibe we often find in postmodernism.
Rather than trying to pass itself off as a window on the world and disguise its structure and
techniques, metafiction lays its cards on the table. There are lots of different ways in which
authors can create this effect—story-within-a-story, making obvious references to storytelling
conventions—but what they have in common is that they call attention to the processes of
writing and reading.
This technique started to attract attention in the 1960s when it was used in some classic
texts such as John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. It then reached the height of its popularity in the '70s,
though some authors (such as Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace) kept using it in
spades. Fast forward to the present, and metafiction has spread out much wider, becoming a
major part of pop culture.
Through its references to literary styles and conventions, metafiction gives us another
example of postmodernism's bric-a-brac approach. Postmodern literature isn't about creating
something 100% new and real—remember, these ideals are no longer seen as possible by
postmodernists. Rather than fighting against this, though, postmodernists go with the flow and
embrace the idea of writing stories about stories, instead of getting bogged down in a quest for
what's authentic or real.
P.S. As an add-on to the concept of metafiction, Linda Hutcheon came up with the term
"historiographic metafiction" in 1988. The term describes fictional texts that bring history into
the mix—a combo that takes us away from the idea of history as fact and highlights that writers
can put their own spin on things (after all, it's history we2're dealing with here).

PASTICHE

Think of pastiche as the literary equivalent of a collage: it's not about creating something
from scratch but drawing on what already exists. (Yeah, those Bachelor contestants know what's
up.) There are all sorts of ways in which texts can reference other texts, right? But what a
pastiche does is imitate other texts or genres. It's like playing dress up: a text may take on the
guise of a hard-boiled detective novel, a Gothic melodrama, a spy adventure…take your pick.
The postmodern author doesn't even have to choose just one—they can mimic as many genres as
they like.
People sometimes get pastiche and parody mixed up, since they're both examples of
intertextuality and relying on our knowledge as readers: we can't recognize parody or pastiche in
action unless who know what they're referencing. But parody usually exaggerates and pokes fun
at the original material. Pastiche, meanwhile, adopts the stylings of the original but doesn't
comment on or make fun of the material (if anything, it's more likely to pay tribute).
As with postmodernism in general, not everyone is in love with the idea of pastiche—
Fredric Jameson famously called it pointless and empty. Despite its critics, though, pastiche is a
super-popular technique in postmodern texts and can be found in all areas of pop culture. Think
Quentin Tarantino movies: they imitate a bunch of genres, like kung fu, grindhouse, and western
movies; and dime store pulp novels.
So if you're reading or watching something and it seems like it's a hodgepodge of different
genres, you can put your money on pastiche.

MAXIMALISM
 Where minimalism is all about making things neat, tidy, and low key, maximalism goes
against the grain by embracing excess. And for many postmodernists, maximalism is where it's
at.
Because postmodernism doesn't stick to any hard and fast rules, its texts can be any length. Still,
some of its best-loved texts tend to be on the long side (coughDFWcough), and it's usually
maximalism that's to blame—er…thank? Postmodernists just love to describe stuff.
And it's not just lengthy descriptions that create these 800-page tomes. These authors also
tend to, um, go off on tangents. Postmodernism definitely doesn't stick to traditional ideas about
plotting and narrative structure, which means authors are more likely to take diversions and
explore other themes and subplots that tickle their fancy.
As with so many postmodern characteristics, maximalism gives the author the chance to
experiment. Since we're living in an age in which the line between authentic and inauthentic has
become blurred (so say the pomos), we may as well just throw everything into the mix rather
than getting bogged down with what's real/false or certain/uncertain.
Postmodernism's love of intertextuality and metafiction adds to its maximalist character.
It's inevitable if you think about it: if an author is making loads of references to other texts—and
to itself as a text—then we're most likely dealing with a work of maximalist fiction. In fact,
maximalism is pretty blatant about including heaps of outside info and references.

IRONY

Irony isn't exclusive to postmodernism, but the pomos just own it. Before we dive in, take
a look at Shmoop's definition of irony, paying closest attention to verbal irony. It's kind of like
sarcasm…just fancier. Irony can be playful, or it can be used to highlight the absurdity or
severity of serious situations.
Yep, it's a multitasker.
By the 1990s, irony had exploded onto the pop culture scene. In fact, it had become so
popular that it seemed to have lost its impact—people even started talking about the end of irony,
especially in the immediate wake of 9/11. For some, irony seemed to have no place following the
very real horror of this tragedy. As guys like Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller had shown in
response to WWII, though, irony can always be an effective literary device: it may lay low for a
while, but it always returns.

HYPERREALITY

While some authors and theorists welcomed postmodernism with open arms, others have
argued that it's not all fun and games. Guy Debord wrote an influential book called The Society
of Spectacle (1967), in which he flagged the downsides of a world in which the media had
seemingly invaded every corner of society. His conclusion was that we're now living in a society
in which nothing's real anymore: "All that once was directly lived has become mere
representation."
Deep.
Jean Baudrillard was another guy who held this outlook, expanding on it inSimulacra
and Simulation (1981). For Baudrillard, postmodernism wasn't just about experimental art and
fiction: he focused on the 20th-century background in which it had developed, arguing that
media and consumer culture had gone into overdrive and led to a Matrix-style scenario where
there's no originality left and what seems real is just a simulation.
Rather than embracing the postmodern age, Baudrillard saw its speed and its blurring of
real/unreal as having had a damaging effect. According to this guy, we've become so bombarded
with images that we've lost touch with reality and, what's more, mistake these images, or
"simulacra," forreality. The result? Life may seem real but it's no longer really real—we're now
living in a state of hyperreality.
Trippy, right?
Though Baudrillard puts a negative spin on things, his theory has its roots in one of the
big ideas behind postmodernism, which is that there's nothing original left so say and no story
that hasn't been told. Words like originality and authenticity used to have a lot of street cred, but
for postmodernists, nothing's truly original anymore. In this view, art and literature are created
by reworking existing texts and ideas.
Postmodernism usually doesn't sweat this lack of authenticity or concepts like "reality" and
"truth." Its attitude is pretty much "so what?"—it takes it as a given and works from there. But
there were some folks who weren't too happy about this turn of events. So is postmodernism a
thrill or is it the demise of civilization?
You be the judge.

PARANOIA

For all its playfulness, postmodern literature also deals with heavy stuff—including
paranoia. Yep, these people thought someone was out to get them.
Okay, we need to take social and historical background into account here. Remember,
postmodernism grew out of a mid-late 20th-century setting in which technology, consumerism,
and the media were all growing at an insane rate. As the world entered a new era of mass
communication and technology (i.e., "technoculture"), writers started tapping into the theme of
technology going into, um, overdrive and people being left powerless under its reign.
So technology is ramping up: is that enough to make people freak out? Possibly, but the
postmodernists had more factors on their side. Namely, a little thing called the Cold War. The
Cold War was basically a game of chicken, in which the ongoing suspicion between the East and
West was so thick, you could cut it with…a dystopian story.
Technology + a war of distrust = Big Brother is watching.
And remember, the idea that you're being controlled, that your life isn't your own, is
especially horrific for postmodernists, who were all about person freedom and, frankly, chaos.
The order being imposed on the world around them—be it through technology or spies—was
enough to psych them out.

FRAGMENTATION

Let's hop in our Shmoop time machines and head back to the 18th century: a little period
we like to call the Enlightenment. Enlightenment folks were all about order, rationality, science,
reason, and unity. Yeah, not exactly a postmodern manifesto.
As with any movement worth its salt, Enlightenment thinking had its fair share of
challengers. And as time went on, new movements started to flourish and to tap into social
changes that were the order of the day. After Romanticism and Gothicism had their run,
modernism came around the corner—after World War I, the modernists were all about
uncertainty, alienation, and fragmentation.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, the modernists and postmodernists had a lot in common. But here's the thing:
modernists tended to express a sense of sadness about this turn of events (hello, The Waste
Land  ), seeing the fragmentation as something to be mourned. Some modernists even tried to
cling onto order, using art as a beacon of meaning in a world where meaning seemed to have
been totally lost.
Postmodernism, on the other hand, doesn't hanker after these qualities or try to hold onto
them. Quite the opposite: it embraces the idea of fragmentation and uses it to create playful texts
that reflect and explore the chaos of the world. No attempts to find some sort of grand meaning
or insight ("grand narratives," that is); these dudes were skeptics to their souls.