Notes about Modernism and Postmodernism.

1- Modernism Movement.

Modernism was a cultural movement which developed during the three first decades of the 20th century. It was concerned with a metaphysical aim because it wanted to find a sense to human life and find a new and fundamental truth.
The new view of the world influenced also literature, so Modernist novel caused the traditional one fall. All the old values of Western society fell with the war and people could not rely themselves on them anymore. Before Modernism there was a trust into progress, into wealth brought by Capitalism and religion, but it was realized that progress had not produced well being and that wealth was only for few people and that God had not helped poor people. The symbol of Capitalism literature and culture, the self-made man, was rejected: a person is not perfect, has many different selves and has doubts and hesitations. Furthermore Albert Einstein's theory about space and time utterly changed the perception of the world: everything depends on observer's position and the attention is not focused on a singular and fixed time and space. Man felt lost and tried to give a sense of his life and find new meanings and new point of reference. This quest lead in literature to a formal quest and experimenation of new ways to see and to realize art. So there was the development of stream of consciousness, inner monologue and the shift of points of view: novel character would have never been the same.

2- Postmodernism Movement.

Postmodernism is a cultural movement which developed during the second half of the 20th century in reaction to Modernism. Unlike it, Postmodernism does not believe in a truth because it does not exist. There are many truths as people because Postmodernism believes in a society composed of many thinking people.
Another important feature which distinguishes Postmodernism from Modernism is the way to consider art: it does not separate high art and low one because nowadays culture is more easy to acces to everyone. Also Globalization supports culture spread with technologies and quicker and easier connections between many places.
Postmodernism literature can not accept realistic 19th novel because it believed in the existance of a unique truth. As for the relation between Modernism and Postmodernism literature, it goes beyond the first: both use the inner monologue, the stream of consciousness, the shift of point of view and a no linear sequencing of events, but Postmodernism accepts the fragmentation of reality in many aspects (many people mean many opinion and thoughts) without find an order under the surface.
An example of Postmodernism novel is Michael Cunningham's The Hours. In it the events are arranged around the lives of three women, so there is no chronological sense in the narration. All times coexist in reader's mind and in three characters'consciousnesses: the narrator can only know thouhghts which emerge from the stream of consciousness. In this way the writer is able to traduce the work of mind into the novel and make know the reader his characters with a real representation.