Test for oral assessment
Expected results

1. Analyse the word Postmodernism

The word Postmodernism will display the movement cultural features and contradictions: first of all it implies a relationship with Modernism, since at the same time it comes diachronically after but also goes beyond same of its tenets. As it always happens with something new, at the beginning it is considered with suspect.

2. Explain how Modernism and Postmodernism are different

Modernism and Postmodernism while constantly having a mutual silent dialogue are totally different as far as the way they considered truth, because while Modernists still believed in the possibility to find a meaning which could give relevance to their existence and they followed personal quests in their direction, Postmodernists do not even think to look for truth as single unique point of reference because they do not believe there is one.

3. Explain the technique of intertextuality
Intertextuality is a cultural and narrative technique which openly displace references to other texts in different ways, from inner influence, structural frameworks and/or quotations.

4. Explain the connection between the rise of the novel and the birth of industrialization
The connection between the rise of the novel and the birth of industrialization is clearly explained in Robyn's lesson, where she finds a justification in the protestant ethic as the springboard for the investment of once knows how. If on the one hand Capitalists invested their money in industrial projects, the novelists invests his/her imagination to create a product that costumers only knows he/she wants when reading the novel. Robyn is one of the protagonists of David Lodge's Nice Work, a typical example of semiotic materialism underline Postmodernism.

5. Why does Postmodernism no longer distinguish between high and low art?
Postmodernism cannot distinguish between high and low art because it rejects the idea of meaning as a reference point and, as result if there is no reference meaning, there cannot be any definite truth or authority which can established what is high and what is low. It follows that Postmodernism considers high and low art all the same discourse formations that can coexists.

6. Why does Postmodernism do not believe in the concept of author?
Postmodernism does not believe in the concept of author because it poses the idea that since there is not a single identity conceived of as a unique finite soul in total control of his/her productions, communication and relationship it follows that there can not be a single author from which a text can totally originate and therefore there is only production as a tissue of intertextual references. 

7. Explain the idea of readers in Postmodernism
Readers in Postmodernism comes to the forefront for the same reason that explains the lack of a single author. If there is no author meaning, comprehension and interpretation shift from the author to they who create possible meanings and interpretations from they process of reading that is trying to find personal meanings out of the discourse formation they came across in the text they read.

8. What are the advantages of using the Bible as structuring principle in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit?
Using the Bible as structuring principles of in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is revolutionary attitude to put into question the text of the Bible seen as a dogmatic point of reference. The Bible, the very essence of western culture is used in a game like narrative framework to create entertainment like the novel. In addition it provides the intelligent reader a sense of direction to follow the project displaying one of the most traditional formats of the western novels the Bildungsroman. Indeed the name of the chapters in the novel are symbolic and metaphorical representation of different steps and stages of growth in the protagonists life. In short religion, the untouchable reference and truth for excellence of all western culture is continually and continuously questioned thus demonstrating that postmodernism thus not believe in history, meaning, dogmas, authors or whatever when they came to be considered untouchable rules that are expected to tell people what to do and what not.

9. Why do you think Jeanette Winterson inserted parallel stories?
Inserted parallel stories are meant to provide the reader a parallel layer where symbolical and thus metaphorically the narrator creates a silent dialogue between storyline, plot and the inserted stories of the novel. It follows that the choice that becomes a structural choice once to underline the apparent difference between realism ( apparently telling about facts, histories and events) and fiction. Fiction actually means something invented. Storylines and inserted stories are just a way for the narrator to provide the reader with occasions of reflecting and researching about once life.  

10. Explain why J. Winterson adopts mainly a 1st person narrator
The adopting of a first person narrator for most part of the novel is another game like choice with which the writer J. Winterson herself plays with the reader. In that she does not easily distinguish between Jeanette, the concrete living writer and Jeanette the protagonist of the novel, thus making fun of all those (critics included) that still are unable to understand fiction is not concrete reality, fiction is an art craft, something made up and despite all this .. . In a few word hypereal.