Modernism and Postmodernism

02. Modernism

‘Modernism’, in a broader sense, is modern thought, character, or practice braking away with the rules, traditions and existing ways of writing practiced by earlier authors. In art, modernism breaks away with the ideology of realism and makes use of past through the use of flashback, recapitulation, and incorporation. This rebellious attitude flourishes between 1900 and 1930 has, as its basis, the rejection of European culture for having become too corrupt and artificial. This dissatisfaction with the moral bankruptcy of everything European led modern thinkers and artists to explore other alternatives, especially primitive cultures. In literature, ‘modernism’ grows out as a reaction to realism and naturalism. Generally literary texts after World War I as well as belonging the above qualities are considered as modern text.

2.1. Characteristics of Modernism:

Modernism’ marks a strong and intentional break with tradition and it is also related to politics, religion etc.. Though modernism becomes prominent after traditionalism so knowing the difference between these two ‘ism’ is important. Traditionalism, which is based on tradition, is a dominant way of life. There are always pre-determined rules, explanations for people and their life in traditionalism. Objectivism is another important point in traditionalism. There is one truth for everything in traditionalism. High class people are more important than middle or low class people in traditionalism because it gives importance for elevated style. On the other hand, as modernism is a break with tradition, so this break includes a strong reaction against established religious, political, and social views. According to modernism, there is no such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative. Another thing, where in traditionalism objectivism is an important point, modernism gives importance to subjectivism.

Championship of the individual through the celebration of inner strength is one of the most prominent characteristics of modernism and in this regard it differs from realism. This ‘ inner strength’ of the individual is expressed through four literary ‘isms’- subjectivism, impressionalism, expressionalism and surrealism. Realism attempts to portray external objects and events as the common or middle class people see them in every day life, impressionalism tries to portray the psychological impression that these objects and events make on characters, emphasizing the role of individual perception and exploring the nature of conscious and subconscious mind. Whereas realism attempts to portray external objects and events, expressionalism tries to explain the inner vision, emotion or spiritual reality. Whereas, realism attempts to portray external objects and events as they are verisimilituded, surrealism tries to liberal the subconscious to see connection overlooked by the logical mind. In this regard, we can mention James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), A portrait of the artist as a Young Man, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Dorothy Richardson’ Pilgrimage and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, To A Lighthouse.

2.2. Modernism in Literary texts:

In literature, Literary Modernism has its origins in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly in Europe and North America. The period of high modernism is twenty years from 1910 to 1930. Some of the high priests of the movement in literature are T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Wallace Stevens, Franz Kafka etc.. The characteristics of the literary modernism that are followed by these writers are given below:

First of all, a new emphasis on impressionalism and subjectivism, that we mentioned earlier, which focus on how we see rather what we see. In this regard a new literary technique, stream of consciousness’, is employed by James Joyce and his followers such as Virginia Woolf in their writings. Then, regarding narrative technique modernist literary texts are away from the apparent objectivity provided by such features as: omniscient external narration, fixed narrative point of view. However, language is also an important device of modernism to differentiate a literary text from other texts. In modern literary text emphasizes on colloquial language rather than formal language.  Finally, a new liking for fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives are obvious in modernist literary texts. For example- Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot are superb examples of fragmented forms.

Conclusion:

Thus, modernism originated from the corruption, decadence and frustrations in the post-war psyche of the western people marks off from the previous literary tradition that got reduced to cold formalism and traditionalism.

03. Post-modernism

Post-modernism is the term used to suggest a reaction or response to modernism in the late twentieth century. So, postmodernism can only be understood in relation to Modernism. At its core, Postmodernism rejects that which Modernism champions. While postmodernism seems very much like modernism in many ways, it differs from modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernism, for example, tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history, but presents that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss. Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that. In literature, it used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc. and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.

3.1 Characteristics of Post-modernism:

Because of some similar characteristics of modernism and postmodernism, critics sometimes become confuse to differentiate one from the other. It would be more helpful if we discuss the characteristics of post-modernism in compare and contrast to modernism.

Like modernism, postmodernism also believes the view that there is no absolute truth and truth is relative. Postmodernism asserts that truth is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but is rather constructed as the mind tries to understand its own personal reality. So, facts and falsehood are interchangeable. For example, in classical work such as King Oedipus there is only one truth that is “obey your fate”. In contrast to classical work in postmodern work such as in Waiting for Godot, there is no such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative here.

Whereas Modernism places faith in the ideas, values, beliefs, culture, and norms of the West, Postmodernism rejects Western values and beliefs as only a small part of the human experience and often rejects such ideas, beliefs, culture, and norms.

Whereas Modernism attempts to reveal profound truths of experience and life, Postmodernism is suspicious of being "profound" because such ideas are based on one particular Western value systems.

Whereas Modernism attempts to find depth and interior meaning beneath the surface of objects and events, Postmodernism prefers to dwell on the exterior image and avoids drawing conclusions or suggesting underlying meanings associated with the interior of objects and events.

Whereas Modernism focused on central themes and a united vision in a particular piece of literature, Postmodernism sees human experience as unstable, internally contradictory, ambiguous, inconclusive, indeterminate, unfinished, fragmented, discontinuous, "jagged," with no one specific reality possible. Therefore, it focuses on a vision of a contradictory, fragmented, ambiguous, indeterminate, unfinished, "jagged" world.

Whereas Modern authors guide and control the reader’s response to their work, the Postmodern writer creates an "open" work in which the reader must supply his own connections, work out alternative meanings, and provide his own (unguided) interpretation.

3.2. Characteristics of Postmodern Writing:

Post-modernism is the term used to suggest a reaction or response to modernism in the late twentieth century. Postmodernism has opposite characteristics to traditionalism, realism. Postmodernism believes in the premise ‘irrational is real, real is irrational’. Moreover, unlike modernism, postmodernism celebrates the fragmentation instead of lamenting over it.  Postmodernism does not care ground zero in its framework though traditionalism does. There is no pre-determined rules, well-established and long-term principles. Events, activities, thoughts, manners do not exist for a long time in postmodernism. All of these issues are subjected to change unlike traditionalism. Postmodernism argues that there is no absolute truth in the universe. Characteristics of literary works in postmodernism are so broad. Rules of classical literary works are not valid in these literary works. There is no unity of time, place and action in literary works in postmodernism. Unlike Classical literary works, there is no hero. However; characters of literary works in postmodernism are from middle or low class in other words they are ordinary man. Subject of literary works are inner world, thought and problems of these ordinary people. Endings of literary works can be interpreted in many different ways. Outcome of literary works may change from person to person. On the other hand, there is a close ending in classical literary works. There is only one lesson for everyone in classical works. For example, King Oedipus by Sophocles has a close ending and same lesson for everyone. The lesson is: “obey the fate”. But in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett we can not reach such definite conclusion.

Apart from the above characteristics, we also some other features that postmodern writings generally maintain. As in postmodernism, all ideas are new, so sometimes it becomes difficult and confusing to properly understand these terms.

3.2.1. Irony, playfulness, black humor:

Postmodern authors were certainly not the first to use irony and humor in their writing, but for many postmodern authors, these became the hallmarks of their style. Postmodern authors are very frustrated for World War II, the Cold War, conspiracy theories. They try to amalgate it from indirect way so, irony, playfulness, black humor comes. 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's common for postmodernists to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way.

Some examples of texts that bear the above features--Roland Barthes’s  The Pleasure of the Text. The central concept of Joseph 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 in particular provides prime examples of playfulness, often including silly wordplay, within a serious context. The Crying of Lot 49, for example, 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.

3.2.2. Pastiche:

Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. In Postmodernist literature, many postmodern authors combined, or “pasted” elements of previous genres and styles of literature to create a new narrative voice, or to comment on the writing of their contemporaries. For example, William S. Burroughs uses science fiction, detective fiction, westerns; Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales; Thomas Pynchon, uses elements from detective fiction, science fiction, and war fiction. 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 also refer to 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.

3.2.3. Intertextuality:

Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence.”[1]An important element of postmodernism is its acknowledgment of previous literary works. The intertextuality of certain works of postmodern fiction means the relationship between one text (a novel for example) and another or one text within the interwoven fabric of literary history. Critics point to this as an indication of postmodernism’s lack of originality and reliance on clichés. 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 other – or in references to popular genres such as science-fiction 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. 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.[citation needed] 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, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Borges.

3.2.4.Metafiction:
Many postmodern authors feature metafiction in their writing, which, essentially, is writing about writing, an attempt to make the reader aware of its fictionality, and, sometimes, the presence of the author. Authors sometimes use this technique to allow for flagrant shifts in narrative, impossible jumps in time, or to maintain emotional distance as a narrator. Though metafiction is primarily associated with Modernist literature and Postmodernist literature, but is found at least as early as Homer's Odyssey and Chaucer's 14th century Canterbury Tales. Some examples of metafiction literary texts: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien, Stephen King's Misery and Secret Window, Secret Garden, Ian McEwan's Atonement, The Counterfeiters by André Gide, John Irving's The World According to Garp, Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea by Michael Morpurgo, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, Oracle Night by Paul Auster, More Bears! by Kenn Nesbitt, and Cy Coleman's 1989 Tony Award best musical, City of Angels.

3.2.5. Historiographic metafiction:

This term was created by Linda Hutcheon to refer to novels that fictionalize actual historical events and characters. Notable examples include  Thomas Pynchon’s Mason and Dixon, for example, features a scene in which George Washington smokes Pot. 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 Márquez (about Simón 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. In regard to critical theory, this technique can be related to "The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes.

3.2.6. Temporal distortion:

This is a common technique in modernist fiction: fragmentation and non-linear 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. In this literary the author may jump forwards or backwards in time, or there may be cultural and historical references that do not fit. For example, 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.

3.2.7. Technoculture and hyperreality:

In his essay of the same name, Frederic Jameson called postmodernism the “cultural logic of late capitalism.” According to his logic, society has moved beyond capitalism into the information age, in which we are constantly bombarded with advertisements, videos, and product placement. Many postmodern authors reflect this in their work by inventing products that mirror actual advertisements, or by placing their characters in situations in which they cannot escape technology. 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. Steampunk, a subgenre of science fiction popularized in novels and comics by such writers as Alan Moore and James Blaylock, demonstrates postmodern pastiche, temporal distortion, and a focus on technoculture with its mix of futuristic technology and Victorian culture.

3.2.8.Paranoia:
Paranoia is the belief that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring postmodern theme. For the postmodernist, no ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd. 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.

3.2.9. Magical realism:

Arguably the most important postmodern technique, magical realism is the introduction of fantastic or impossible elements into a narrative that it seems real or normal. Magical realist novels may include dreams taking place during normal life, the return of previously deceased characters, extremely complicated plots, wild shifts in time, and myths and fairy tales becoming part of the narrative. Many critics argue that magical realism has its roots in the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, two South American writers, and some have classified it as a Latin American style. Jorge Luis Borges’s Historia universal de la infamia, regarded by many as the first work of magic realism. Apart from this, Colombian novelist Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth Graver's "The Mourning Door" are some examples of magic realism.

04. A Modernist and Postmodernist Study of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett:

We have already discussed modern and postmodern elements with providing some examples of literary texts. Now, I would like to discuss an individual text elaborately to show how the modern and postmodern elements are prevailing here. In this regard, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a superb example where modern and postmodern elements are juxtaposed nicely. We have mentioned that, there are some similar characteristics of modernism and postmodernism and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1948) is an absurd play that falls into both the genre of modernism and postmodernism. Considering its publishing period and other features such as subjectivism, fragmentation, paradox, existential crisis, identity crisis etc. we can see that the play bears the features of both modernism and postmodernism. Moreover, this play is also a leading play in the ‘Theatre of Absurd’, a theatrical outcome of modernism, which was inspired by existential philosophy and its view that at the root of our being there is nothingness. In the play, two major characters Vladimir and Estragon are waiting on a country road, by a tree for Godot who never comes. Through the barren setting and meaningless waiting the play actually symbolizes the psychological barrenness of modern people that arouse after two world wars. Modern people fall in the trap of waiting, a waiting that has no solution except keeping on waiting.

Prior to our main discussion, we must know some background information and to do so we must look back to the events that takes place during the first half of the twentieth century in the worlds of politics, literature, philosophy and religion. The early twentieth century witnessed two World Wars. In literature it gives birth to two recognizable literary styles: modernism and post-modernism and all these happenings paved the way for the theatrical tradition the absurd drama, as we mentioned earlier, that it is an outcome of postmodernism. In fact it is a reflection of the age. The theatre of the absurd describes a mood, a tone towards life, where man's existence is a dilemma of purposeless, meaningless, and pointless activity. It is complete denial of age-old values. It has no plot, no characterization, no logical sequence, and no culmination. Samuel Becket introduced the concept of absurdity, nothingness and meaninglessness of life in his play Waiting For Godot.

With the above information, now it will be a bit easier to analyze our text Waiting For Godot . Waiting for Godot written in the second half of the twentieth Century in other words in just after modernism and just before the postmodernism, so; the play bears the characteristics of both modernism and postmodernism.

At first, the play celebrates the fragmentation in all dimensions. The language, plot, character, setting, and theme are presented in a fragmented form. It is as if the play were the supreme example of the fragmentations. The difference between The Waste Land and Waiting for Godot is that the former laments for the glory of the past which has fallen apart, but the later never laments for the past. On the other hand, the play celebrates the fragmentations. In this aspect the play is more tend to bear the postmodernist qualities than that of modernist.  

Another key characteristic of both modernism and postmodernism is that it holds the view that what is irrational is real and what is real is irrational. The play with its bizarre characteristics turns irrationality in the very rationality, the very unreality into the reality. To add more, characters (Vladimir, Estragon) are not from high-class but ordinary man. The play is interested in their identity problem which is an inner problem. There is no plot as well as action in Waiting for Godot. So, nothing happens in the play. There is no order also in both modernism and postmodernism. It is a common characteristic in Waiting for Godot and both modernism and postmodernism.

Then, in Waiting for Godot there is no absolute truth. All things are relative here. There is one truth for everything in traditionalism. Like modernism, postmodernism also believes the view that there is no absolute truth and truth is relative. Both modernism and postmodernism assert that truth is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but is rather constructed as the mind tries to understand its own personal reality. So, facts and falsehood are interchangeable.

Waiting for Godot, as we mentioned earlier, is concern with identity problem. We do not learn anything, about two major characters Vladimir and Estragon, such as their age, their status in society, their job etc.. Though they have name, but we do not know them as they do not call their names. Vladimir calls Estragon as Gogo and Estragon calls Vladimir as Didi. Their loss of memory is also associated with their identity crisis. The characters cannot remember their past. Loss of memory loss of identity. In Act II, Pozzo appears as blind and he cannot remember that they had met Vladimir and Estragon the previous day.

Waiting for Godot is also a play in the Theatre of Absurd, a theatrical outcome of modernism. Through the portrayal of characters, Beckett asserts that at the root of our being there is nothingness. Vladimir and Estragon face existential crisis as life seems nothing to them.This frustration is expressed through the repetation of the sentence, "Nothing to be done” by Estragon. Almost all modern people after two world wars experience the same feelings. Life appears to them as absurd thing with full of pureposeless, nothingness and meaninglessness.

Thus, we can say that the play Waiting for Godot is an interesting play for a study from modernist and postmodernist perspectives. The character, setting, language, and the style of the play go with the twentieth century literary movement called modernism and postmodernism.

 05. Conclusion:

Thus, postmodernism is just not another distinct historical period, it marks some changes that characterized the literary and intellectual cultures of the second half of the last century. Postmodernism is still a dominant force and continues to have an influence on the intellectual activities of the time.