COMMON THEMES AND

TEACHNIQUES

Irony, Playfulness, Black Humor

- Treating serious subjects in a playful and humorous way

- Pokes fun at everything serious, even death
- Lightens heavy concepts such as crime, crisis, mortality
- you’ll find yourself cracking, laughing up at things you’re not
supposed to make fun of
Death at a Funeral (2010)

• Synopsis of the plot:

Preparing for a funeral is never pleasant, but for Aaron, it is shaping

up to be the worst day of his life. Sibling rivalry, meddling family
members, and a little stranger with a big secret threaten to blow the
lid off the coffin when Aaron struggles to give his late father a
proper memorial.
Intertextuality

• Acknowledgement of previous literary works in a story

• Connections between texts, including the various ways in which
one text references another
• For postmodernist, no texts exist in isolation and that works of
literature can totally be created using stuff that already exists
Pastiche
• Combine or paste together multiple elements
• Combination of multiple genres/elements/styles of
literature
• Imitates other texts or genres
• Purpose is not to mock but a way of paying respect, or
honor, to great works of the past.
PARODY
• A work that mimics in absurd or ridiculous way the conventions
and style of another work
• Purpose is to derive ridicule, iconic moment or affectionate fun
Metafiction
• The prefix meta means beyond or transcending; thus the
term metafictionliterally means "beyond fiction.“
• it's a device that forces the reader to confront the differences between
reality and fiction/fantasy, the line between what's real and what pretends
to be
• Characteristics:
In metafiction authors often break out of the narrative to address the nature of what
they are doing in the novel.
• intrusions in the narrative to comment on the writing
• involvement of the author with the fictional characters
• "directly addressing the reader"
• "openly questioning how narrative assumptions and conventions transform and
filter reality. . . ."
Magic Realism
• Fairy tales are not magical realism. Neither are horror stories, ghost stories,
science fiction, dystopian fiction, paranormal fiction, absurdist literature, and
sword and sorcery fantasy. It’s not about space explorers or wizards; Star
wars and Harry Potter are not examples of the approach.
• Characteristics:
-Situations and Events That Defy Logic
 Distorted Time and Sequence- characters may move backward, leap forward,
or zigzag between the past and the future; Sudden shifts in narrative
Real World Settings-Despite the extraordinary events in their lives, the
characters are ordinary people who live in recognizable places.
Matter-of-Fact Tone:Characters do not question the surreal situations they
find themselves in. 
Temporal distortion
• Time is the foundation of narrative
• Removal of the traditional narrative timeline constraints
• Also allows for historical characters to be inserted into new
timelines for comedic effects
• Uses nonlinear timeline (foreshadowing and flashback)
• Author manipulates time
Technoculture and hyperreality
• Technoculture is more of a neologism which doesn’t appear in
dictionaries, but as a postmodern trend theorist Fredrick Jameson
calls it a culture of the “Postindustrial age”, where society has
moved past the industrial age or is “consumer society, media
society, information society, electronic society or high tech and the
like” 
The Matrix
Paranoia
• people thought someone was out to get them
• ‘plot’ is that of a secret plan or conspiracy to accomplish a criminal
or illegal purpose. The protagonist of the postmodernist novel
sometimes suspects that he or she is trapped at the center of an
intrigue, often with some justification.
Shutter Island

• The implausible escape of a brilliant murderess brings U.S.

Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner
(Mark Ruffalo) to Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like insane asylum
located on a remote, windswept island. The woman appears to
have vanished from a locked room, and there are hints of terrible
deeds committed within the hospital walls. As the investigation
deepens, Teddy realizes he will have to confront his own dark fears
if he hopes to make it off the island alive.
Maximalism
• denotes fictional works, particularly novels, that are unusually
long and complex, are digressive in style, and make use of a wide
array of literary devices and techniques

• Maximalist works submerge readers with informational deluges,

utilizing a variety of subject material and literary techniques and
genres to maintain attention

• Lengthy, detailed, too many themes and plots

Examples
• Example:
- Ang Probinsyano
- The Avengers
- The curious case of Benjamin Button
MINIMALISM
• denotes short works of fiction that combine a terse style and
deliberate economy of means with ordinary, even mundane
subject matter
• Focused on a surface description where readers are expected to
take an active role in creation of story