COMPARISON BETWEEN MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM

Modernism

•Ø  covered the first three decades of the 20^th century

•Ø  believes that science and knowledge will improve the world

•Ø  social progress will be inevitable

•Ø  possibility to find truth

•Ø  rejection of tradition

•Ø  implies the presence of a principal character

Postmodernism

•Ø  Since the Sixties on

•Ø  Rejects the idea of universal social progress

•Ø  questions the idea of authority (no absolute truth)

•Ø  does not believe in the existence of an absolute meaning because meaning is never stable, always slippery, still to come (the concept is connected to the relationship between SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED)

•Ø  it abolished the difference between law and high art

•Ø  challenges all certainty

•Ø  in literature the position of the reader is the best one because is the reader he or she who gave sense, who gave a possible meaning of what he or she is reading

•Ø  example of postmodern novel: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (intertestuality)

•Ø  does not imply the presence of a main character

•Ø  identity or self does not exist (everybody identity is conditioned by life's situations, it is not stable)

Postmodernism developed during the Sixties. It does not longer believe on the concept of a single centre, as it generally happened in all the previous generations. It is in contrast with modernism, which covered the first three decades of the 20^th century. Modernism believes that science and knowledge will improve the world. In order to modernists the social progress would be inevitable. They were still looking for a point of reference. On the contrary Postmodernism questions all that and comes to the conclusion that there is no longer a single truth, there is no longer one centre but many centres. It also implies that there is not meaning because it is always different: there is a continuous slipping of meaning because it is never stable. The concept is closely connected to the relation between SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is a perfect example of postmodern novel because of the presence of intertestuality. The presence of quotations underlines the intertestual nature of the novel. Jeanette Winterson also arranged the novel referring to the traditional structure of the Old Testament of the Bible. Apparently there are two important characters: Jeanette's mother and Jeanette herself. They are functional in order to create a contrast.

Mother: modernism: religion must be the centre of life

Jeanette: postmodernism: she wants to find her way, she does not want to be a prophet