MAPPING POST-MODERNISM AND MODERNISM

POST-MODERNISM (<- MODERNISM):

-         No longer concept of truth, authority and centre, DECONSTRUCTION (<- deconstruction of the world, fragmented and in pieces)

-         No longer quest for an absolute truth (<- QUEST for truth, a meaning in a world without God)

-         "Semiotic materialism",  you are what speaks you (<- WE produce ourselves in language)

-         Meaning is always slipping, differed (<- meaning must and can be found)

-         Reader = best position, he/she gives one possible meaning to what he/she reads (<- the novelist poses multiple perspectives)

-         Use of inter-textuality, high and low language, MIXING (<- literature = work of art, language = evidence of skill)

-         Characters not in control of their own destiny (<- autonomous selves in control of their own destiny)

-         INSTABILITY OF IDENTITIES (<- each individual has his own psychology)