EXPECTED RESULT OF THE CLASS TEST

1. The word Post-modernism
        well displays 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 some of its tenets. As it
        always happens with something new, at the beginning it is considered with
        suspect.


2. Modernism and
        Post-modernism while constantly having a mutual silent dialogue are
        totally different as far as the way they consider 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
        this direction, Postmodernists do not even think to look for truth as a
        single unique point of reference because they do not believe there is one.


3. Inter-textuality is a
        cultural and narrative technique which openly displays references to other
        texts in different ways ranging from inner influence, structural
        frameworks and quotations.


4. The connection between
        the rise of the novel and the birth of Capitalism is clearly explained in
        Robyn's lesson, where she finds a justification in the Protestant ethic as
        the springboard for the investment of one's know-how. If on the one hand
        capitalists invest their money in industrial projects, the novelist
        invests his/her imagination to create a product the customer only knows
        he/she wants when reading the novel. Robyn is one of the protagonists
        of David Lodge's Nice Work typical example of the
        semiotic materialism underlying Post-modernism.


5. Post-modernism cannot
        distinguish between high and low art because it rejects the idea of
        meaning as a reference point and, as a result, if there is no reference
        meaning, there cannot be any definite truth of authority which can
        establish what is high and what is low. It follows that Post-modernism
        considers high and low art all the same discourse formation that can
        coexist.


6. Post-modernism 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 production, communication and relationships it
        follows that there cannot be a single author from which text can totally
        originate and therefore there is only production as a tissue of inter-textual
        reference.


7. Readers in Post-modernism
        come 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 their process of reading that is from trying to
        find personal meanings out of the discourse formations they come across in
        the text they read.


8. Using the Bible as the
        structuring principle of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is
        a revolution attitude rationally conceived of 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 a form of 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 novel: the
        Bildus Roman. Indeed the name of the chapters of the novel are symbolic
        and metaphorical representations of different steps and stages of growth
        in the protagonist's life. In short religion, the untouchable reference
        and truth or excellence of all western culture is continually and
        continuously questioned thus demonstrating that Post-modernism does not
        believe in history, meaning, dogmas, authors or whatever when they come to
        be considered untouchable rules that are expected to tell people what to
        do and not.


9. Inserted parallel stories
        are meant to provide the reader a parallel layer where symbolically and
        thus metaphors the narrator create a silent dialogue between storyline,
        plot and the inserted stories of the novel. It follows that the choice
        that becomes a structural choice wants to underline the apparent
        difference between realism (apparently telling about facts, history and
        events) and fiction. Fiction actually means something invented, Storyline
        and inserted stories are just a way for the narrator to provide the reader
        with occasions for reflecting and re-searching about one's life.


10. The adoption of a first
         person narrator for most part of the novel is another game-like choice
         with which the writer Jeanette Winterson herself plays with the reader
         indeed he does not easily distinguish between Jeanette the concrete living
         writer 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 most of the times conceived of as more real than reality itself
         in a few words hypereal.