Postmodernism in The Road

Postmodernismin The Road

Postmodernism: Basic Concepts All versions of reality are SOCIAL

CONSTRUCTS—people should form own reality

Concepts of good and evil Metaphors for God Deconstructed language understanding self

The End of Master Narratives

POSTMODERNISM

PostModern Literature Extreme freedom of form and expression Refusal of boundaries in narration & genre Intrusive, self-reflexive author--the reader is

brought into the story and experiences what the characters experience

Deliberate violation of standards of sense and decency

Integration of everyday experience, pop culture is there to remind the reader of the culture left behind

Play and Parody

POSTMODERNISM

SOME TECHNIQUES USED IN POSTMODERN LITERATURE

Decentering Indeterminacy Self-reflexiveness Parody Intertextuality

Decentering

Definition: texts without a traditional linear plot (beginning, middle, and end).

Theory: people are capable of understanding texts that aren’t written in a traditional fashion

Techniques used: flashback, flashforward, stream of conciousness

IndeterminacyDefinition: vagueness or inconclusiveness Theory: Everyone constructs their own meaning from a text, based

on what the reader deems to be important. WE all have different experiences, values and judgments, which lets us explore our understanding of the world through stories.

The reader has to extract meaning from what was initially seen as a chaotic text.

Self-reflexiveness Definition: a text refers back to itself, rather than referring

to world in which it exists. This materializes in a text that talks about itself, or a narrator,

whose purpose is to break the illusion of realism in a story, but seems to be interrupting in the text. Sometimes, this narrator may not always tell the truth about what is happening in the story, and in these cases it is called an unreliable narrator.

Theory: The text isn’t reality, so why pretend like it is.

Parody A postmodern text may also seek to parody another form of

work. By doing this, postmodernism takes a genre that has been used over and over again, and transforms it into a new style.

Postmodern Art

POSTMODERNISM

Literary & FilmTheory

Celebrating Diversity

POSTMODERNISM

we all have different constructs of reality “Lenses” through which we see the world ?

PostModernism

THE HOPE OF POSTMODERNISTS:

The deconstruction of foundational views will lead to a recognition and acceptance of a pluralistic worldview.

Create a truly global civilization.

Celebrating Diversity

POSTMODERNISM

The Road The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer

Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by

a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, most life on earth.

The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Road

ThImages of Armageddon

The Road The Road follows an unnamed father and son

journeying together toward the sea across a post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a great, cataclysm has destroyed civilization and almost all life on Earth.

The setting is extremely bleak: the sun is obscured by a layer of ash so thick that the pair must breathe through masks, and plants do not grow.

The surviving remnants of humanity have been largely reduced to thoughtless violence and cannibalism.

The Road Realizing that they will not survive another winter

in their present location, the father leads them through this desolate landscape towards the sea, sustained by a vague hope of finding other "good people" like them.

He struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation, as well as from what he sees as the boy's innocently well-meaning but dangerous desire to help the other wanderers they meet.

The Road They carry a pistol with two bullets, meant for

protection or suicide if necessary. In the face of all of these obstacles, the man and

the boy have only each other (they are "each the other's world entire"). Their love for one and other is clear and consistantly shown.

The man maintains the pretense, and the boy holds on to the real faith, that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity. They repeatedly assure one another that they are "the good guys", who are "carrying the fire".

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