Learning Paths » 5B Interacting
Modernism and Post- Modernism are different. The first goes from 1910 to 1930, the second is also our contemporary period.
In this period people start to investigate the concept of authority, now seen in different ways. In fact Post-Modernism states that the science and also all other arts don't have only one centre or only one stable meaning, but it accords to what/ where/ when the reader is. The reader gives an interpretation, a signified to every signifier with his/her personal encyclopedia. So Post-Modernism privileges the position of the reader, no of the author: is the reader who makes sense to what he reads on books, sees in pictures or listens in music. This idea also implies putting into doubt the concept of truth of a definite thought and on this idea all contemporary scientific studies are based. The only truth is that everything change, everything is in constant transformation. Every experiences undergo another interpretation. As a result the science is indeterminate and is full of doubts and questions.
Art of this period is essentially conceptual and abstract and so we can give to it a personal interpretation and meaning. Now there is no longer distinction between high and low arts: they come together in artistic production. Post modern art whatever asks a lot that is very demanded.
Also in literature people don't longer believe in the hero, but in the anti-hero.
The text we're going to read is an extract taken from a novel, a Post-Modernist novel, Nice Work, by David Lodge. He's an important expert of this movement of thought and he became a freelance writer. The work was published in 1992 and it develops around two main characters: Robyn, the woman, and Vic, the man. The point of the extract is the union of the world of Capitalism and the world of literature and all this piece of the text is about the characterization of the female character.
First of all he puts Robyn in contrast with Vic. Then he explains what she thinks and gives a clarification about this thought.
Robyn Penrose reminds to Robyn Hood, a very famous character in English culture who fights riches, though the first is a woman. She doesn't believe in the concept of character: it is a product of a capitalistic vision of the world and so it is an illusion. In fact the birth of novel in eighteenth century coincided with the birth of Capitalism (see Robinson Crusoe).
So the first category is about the way Robyn thinks.