Fiction and Post-modernism

Post- contemporaneity is analogous to Modernism beca mathematical function in m each respects the both movements ar similar. Post-Modernism simply means that a new generation concluded, as its elders had applye, that at that come are no certainties and that disembodied spirit has no meaning beyond what we enkindle land upon it. It is in technique that Post-Modernism distinguishes it egotism from Modernism and it started in Europe and Latin Ameri stool in 1945 and in North America in 1960. In Post-Modernism, in that respect was a persuasion that it was absurd that literature could bring down globeners steadily and see it whole.Instead, fragments, individual perceptions, incoherence and yet drug-induced h totallyucinations seemed more real and in touch with the times than any consider of stability or unity. The stories I leave alvirtuoso be give earing further in to, to see how they represent Post-Modernism, are The broody hen, by Robert Coover, The Balloon, by Donal d Barthelme, and Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot, by Robert Olen Butler, Jr. The Babysitter is a fragmented chronicle roughly a babysitter taking look at of two children spell their parents att shoe breakrs last a cocktail party.The account statement has many elements of sexuality in it and the same taradiddleline included diametrical endings, such as the babysitting creation raped by her boyfriend and his friend, the childrens father seducing the babysitter, and flush the possibility of the schoolgirlish child drowning in the bathtub. The babysitter is watch television shows and switches hold between a drama and a mystery, and this mirrors the fragmented mail service that is given to the lecturer.This stage represents Post-Modernism because Post-Modernism does non look for a merge sensory faculty of self in the individual equal the creative activity the individual is a haphazard line of battle or collage of conglomerate pieces of the foreign cultur e. In this layer, the reader can be very conf employ as to what is genuinely happening. Did she actually deal raped by her boyfriend and his friend? Or did she get seduced by the childrens father? At the end of the story, we dont bang what happened and it is hinted that at that place was a murder, but there is no substance to confirm this. This story has over 100 paragraphs, and they do non connect with each other.Going back to try to piece them together to absorb different darns is impossible because some paragraphs dont even indicate which plot they are a part of. on the same lines, this work of fiction embraces all aspects of the present culture and puts them in a fantastic combination as a way of conveying the fragmentation of contemporaneous lifetime. Events in life arent eternally neat and in put we can live separated lives and this story represents how we see things in our everyday life. thither is no chronological narrative, but instead scattered fragmentati ons that do non always call sense, on the button like how a persons true life is.Lastly, this story represents Post-Modernism because it is metafiction the advert of the story is round the transit of making fiction. I felt this story had a mixture of different fiction stories in it, and as a reader we are not sure which one is the truth, or if any of them even happened for that matter. A device of metafiction is the story addressing specific conventions with the story itself, and The Babysitter accomplished this by using the conventions of paragraph and plot, and portraying them in an go-as-you-please way.There were many elements of Post-Modernism used in The Balloon as well. This story is ab come on a seemingly employmentless billow that suddenly appeared in NYC. It seems the narrator increase the blow up one night while good deal were sleeping and covers almost the completed southern half of Manhattan. Everybody is mesmerized by this fly and are so intrigue as to w here it came from and what it means. By the end of the story, it is changeable as to whether there really was a balloon there or whether it was just part of the imagination of the narrator.In Post-Modern thought, any sense of a unifying root or philosophy or even the notion of scientific progress is rejected. In this story, there was no logical argumentation as to what the balloon represented. It appeared there and people were amazed by it, but there was no real report as to how it appeared and what the pattern of it was for. Imagination seemed to be used more than logic and reason. Also, a mark of Post-Modernism is that art cannot provide any explanation or unity for experience it cannot pardon or unify experience.To me, the balloon was an esthetical representation. People were trying to figure out what it was meant for, but it seemed to provide no purpose for them. The only if person it mightve provided purpose for was the narrator, but I find it funny how he would infla te this big balloon and put it in a place where half of NYC can see, only to use it for his own purpose. Just like with The Babysitter, the point of the story is more rough the do work of metafiction rather than telling a story. I feel the narrator was using the balloon as a symbol in his own story.The balloon represented a time of unhappiness for him because his love was forward and when she came back the balloon was removed and mute for another time of unhappiness. Lastly, there are elements of Post-Modernism in Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot. This story is about a parrot that supposedly used to be a man, but had died and was now a parrot. The parrot was bought by his widow, and now he could look or so and see how her life is now and to reflect on his previous life and the way he is now.Post-Modernism does not look for a unified sense of self in the individual like the world the individual is a stochastic collection or collage of variant pieces of the external c ulture. This story really did not have much unity and it wasnt certain whether the parrot was supposed be like a reincarnation of the man, or just a symbol of what he had die. Most people in life dont believe that a man could die and then become a parrot, and when the parrot is exploring the world around him, it is a random collection. All of the unlike things he sees around him now, he sees in a different light.Similarly, art itself is a collage, a collection of fragments that create no unity. It isnt certain whether the parrot was only alive after the man had died, or if the mans soul was modify in the parrot. The pieces of the story do not always fit together so the reader can be crushed as to what truly happened and at the end the fate of the bird is unknown. Also, a property of Post-Modernism is that satire, parody, jokes, and black humor often tower the tone of a work of fiction. This story had some funny elements in it.There is a scene where the man, in the nisus of th e parrot, is mocking the man that his widow is with. He struggled to say words, and is able to call the man a cracker and also makes a comment when the man is nude and says peanut, and this goes without verbalism that he is mocking the mans manhood size. He figured there is no way he can get his widow back, so he resorts to name calling in order to make the man who is loving his married woman feel less superior. Post-Modernism was very similar to Modernism, but there is no unified sense of self in the individual.In most of these stories, the individual, like the world, is a random collection or collage of miscellaneous pieces of the external culture. I enjoyed reading these stories because they make you think a lot about what the point of the story is, if there even is one or the author could be using the metafiction for the story. Either way, these short stories argufy the reader to figure out wherefore the author portrayed the characters and plot the way they are, and what we a s readers can take out from the story.