Post-Modernism and Self Reflexivity

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how "post-modernism" is the term given to an aesthetic current or cultural phase of the latter half of the twentieth century which followed and was derived from modernism. It looks at how, while bringing new techniques, styles and philosophies, post-modernists also continued some techniques that were offered by modernist experimenters (such as fragmentation and parody) and extended on them. It analyzes Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" and also considers "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon, both of which are clear examples of American postmodern texts. It also discusses how both texts show the use of a technique called "self-reflexivity".

From the Paper:

"Metafiction is the term given to "the exploration by literary texts of their own nature and status as fiction" , and also their attempts to expose all social, political and religious theories as constructs, by posing "questions about the relationship between fiction and reality" . An example of this is in Chapter 3 where a German photographer takes photos of Billy and the American Army: "The photographer wanted something more lively" a picture of an actual capture. So the guards staged one for him. They threw Billy into the shrubbery" (p.42). The photographer, being German, wanted a photo of a captured American, but staged one instead to use as propaganda. This is an example of historiography; history being exposed as fiction, or more accurately "historiographic metafiction" , as Hutcheon describes it."

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