To be Or Not to be - The Question of Identity in Selected Postmodern American Short Stories

To be Or Not to be - The Question of Identity in Selected Postmodern American Short Stories PDF Author: Lars Berghaus
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638794849
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne, course: Postmodern American short stories, 5 Literaturquellen entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In his famous soliloquy of Act III, Scene 1, of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, reveals his inner struggles and his search for identity and meaning. Confronted with and utterly disturbed by family and political problems concerning the crown of Denmark, questions, believes, social conventions and personal convictions are pressing hard on him and leave him searching for meaning and identity, trying to find for the right way through and the right way out. To be, or not to be, that is the question - whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles,". (III,1) The question of "to be or not to be", which is in essence the question of identity, is a widely discussed and fundamental theme of life, a topic many authors have written about and many producers have made the central theme of Hollywood movies. The purpose of this essay is to discuss question of identity in postmodern American short stories. It will include a presentation of postmodernism in its contrast to modernism. Three short stories from different American authors will be discussed in regard to conflicts and development of identity: "Lost in the funhouse" by John Barth, "Saint Marie" taken from Louise Erdrichs "Love medicine" and "A Wife's Story" by Bharati Mukherjee. Special attention will be paid to the story of initiation.

To be Or Not to be - The Question of Identity in Selected Postmodern American Short Stories

To be Or Not to be - The Question of Identity in Selected Postmodern American Short Stories PDF Author: Lars Berghaus
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638794849
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne, course: Postmodern American short stories, 5 Literaturquellen entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In his famous soliloquy of Act III, Scene 1, of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, reveals his inner struggles and his search for identity and meaning. Confronted with and utterly disturbed by family and political problems concerning the crown of Denmark, questions, believes, social conventions and personal convictions are pressing hard on him and leave him searching for meaning and identity, trying to find for the right way through and the right way out. To be, or not to be, that is the question - whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles,". (III,1) The question of "to be or not to be", which is in essence the question of identity, is a widely discussed and fundamental theme of life, a topic many authors have written about and many producers have made the central theme of Hollywood movies. The purpose of this essay is to discuss question of identity in postmodern American short stories. It will include a presentation of postmodernism in its contrast to modernism. Three short stories from different American authors will be discussed in regard to conflicts and development of identity: "Lost in the funhouse" by John Barth, "Saint Marie" taken from Louise Erdrichs "Love medicine" and "A Wife's Story" by Bharati Mukherjee. Special attention will be paid to the story of initiation.

The Postmodern Short Story

The Postmodern Short Story PDF Author: Farhat Iftekharrudin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313052468
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Short stories are usually defined in terms of characteristics of modernism, in which the story begins in the middle, develops according to a truncated plot, and ends with an epiphany. This approach tends to ignore postmodernism, a movement often characterized by a negation of objective reality where plots are seemingly abandoned, surfaces are extraordinary, and symbols turn inward on themselves. This book examines postmodern forms and characteristic themes by analyzing a group of short stories that make use of postmodern narrative strategies, including nonfictional fiction, gender profiling, and death as an image. The volume begins with a discussion of the blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction in the short story and imaginative personal essay. It then looks at the role of women in works by such authors as Sandra Cisneros, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lorrie Moore. This is followed by a section of chapters on postmodern masculinity and short fiction. The next section focuses on death as an image and theme in works by Richard Ford, Richard Brautigan, and James Joyce. The final set of chapters considers postmodern short fiction from South Africa and Canada.

A Companion to the American Short Story

A Companion to the American Short Story PDF Author: Alfred Bendixen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119685648
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
A COMPANION TO THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY A Companion to the American Short Story traces the development of this versatile literary genre over the past two centuries. Written by leading critics in the field, and edited by two major scholars, it explores a wide range of writers, from Edgar Allen Poe and Edith Wharton, at the end of the nineteenth century to important modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Richard Wright. Contributions with a broader focus address groups of multiethnic, Asian, and Jewish writers. Each chapter places the short story into context, focusing on the interaction of cultural forces and aesthetic principles. The Companion takes account of cutting edge approaches to literary studies and contributes to the ongoing redefinition of the American canon, embracing genres such as ghost and detective fiction, cycles of interrelated short fiction, and comic, social and political stories. The volume also reflects the diverse communities that have adopted this literary form and made it their own, featuring entries on a variety of feminist and multicultural traditions. This volume presents an important new consideration of the role of the short story in the literary history of American literature.

Memory and Identity in Modern and Postmodern American Literature

Memory and Identity in Modern and Postmodern American Literature PDF Author: Lovorka Gruic Grmusa
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811950253
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
This book discusses how American literary modernism and postmodernism interconnect memory and identity and if, and how, the intertwining of memory and identity has been related to the dominant socio-cultural trends in the United States or the specific historical contexts in the world. The book’s opening chapter is the interrogation of the narrator’s memories of Jay Gatsby and his life in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The second chapter shows how in William Faulkner’s Light in August memory impacts the search for identities in the storylines of the characters. The third chapter discusses the correlation between memory, self, and culture in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Discussing Robert Coover’s Gerald’s Party, the fourth chapter reveals that memory and identity are contextualized and that cognitive processes, including memory, are grounded in the body’s interaction with the environment, featuring dehumanized characters, whose identities appear as role-plays. The subsequent chapter is the analysis of how Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated deals with the heritage of Holocaust memories and postmemories. The last chapter focuses on Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day, the reconstructive nature of memory, and the politics and production of identity in Southeastern Europe.

Postmodernism For Beginners

Postmodernism For Beginners PDF Author: Jim Powell
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
ISBN: 1939994195
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
If you are like most people, you’re not sure what Postmodernism is. And if this were like most books on the subject, it probably wouldn’t tell you. Besides what a few grumpy critics claim, Postmodernism is not a bunch of meaningless intellectual mind games. On the contrary, it is a reaction to the most profound spiritual and philosophical crisis of our time – the failure of the Enlightenment. Jim Powell takes the position that Postmodernism is a series of “maps” that help people find their way through a changing world. Postmodernism For Beginners features the thoughts of Foucault on power and knowledge, Jameson on mapping the postmodern, Baudrillard on the media, Harvey on time-space compression, Derrida on deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari on rhizomes. The book also discusses postmodern artifacts such as Madonna, cyberpunk, Buddhist ecology, and teledildonics.

The Cambridge Companion to the English Short Story

The Cambridge Companion to the English Short Story PDF Author: Ann-Marie Einhaus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316033597
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This Companion provides an accessible overview of short fiction by writers from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and other international sites. A collection of international experts examine the development of the short story in a variety of contexts from the early nineteenth century to the present. They consider how dramatic changes in the publishing landscape during this period - such as the rise of the fiction magazine and the emergence of new opportunities in online and electronic publishing - influenced the form, covering subgenres from detective fiction to flash fiction. Drawing on a wealth of critical scholarship to place the short story in the English literary tradition, this volume will be an invaluable guide for students of the short story in English.

The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel

The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel PDF Author: Maryemma Graham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139826840
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel presents new essays covering the one hundred and fifty year history of the African American novel. Experts in the field from the US and Europe address some of the major issues in the genre: passing, the Protest novel, the Blues novel, and womanism among others. The essays are full of fresh insights for students into the symbolic, aesthetic, and political function of canonical and non-canonical fiction. Chapters examine works by Ralph Ellison, Leon Forrest, Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman, and many others. They reflect a range of critical methods intended to prompt new and experienced readers to consider the African American novel as a cultural and literary act of extraordinary significance. This volume, including a chronology and guide to further reading, is an important resource for students and teachers alike.

Terminal Identity

Terminal Identity PDF Author: Scott Bukatman
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822313403
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Scott Bukatman's Terminal Identity--referring to both the site of the termination of the conventional "subject" and the birth of a new subjectivity constructed at the computer terminal or television screen--puts to rest any lingering doubts of the significance of science fiction in contemporary cultural studies. Demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge, both of the history of science fiction narrative from its earliest origins, and of cultural theory and philosophy, Bukatman redefines the nature of human identity in the Information Age. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary theories of the postmodern--including Fredric Jameson, Donna Haraway, and Jean Baudrillard--Bukatman begins with the proposition that Western culture is suffering a crisis brought on by advanced electronic technologies. Then in a series of chapters richly supported by analyses of literary texts, visual arts, film, video, television, comics, computer games, and graphics, Bukatman takes the reader on an odyssey that traces the postmodern subject from its current crisis, through its close encounters with technology, and finally to new self-recognition. This new "virtual subject," as Bukatman defines it, situates the human and the technological as coexistent, codependent, and mutally defining. Synthesizing the most provocative theories of postmodern culture with a truly encyclopedic treatment of the relevant media, this volume sets a new standard in the study of science fiction--a category that itself may be redefined in light of this work. Bukatman not only offers the most detailed map to date of the intellectual terrain of postmodern technology studies--he arrives at new frontiers, providing a propitious launching point for further inquiries into the relationship of electronic technology and culture.

Companion to Literature

Companion to Literature PDF Author: Abby H. P. Werlock
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 143812743X
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 859

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Book Description
Praise for the previous edition:Booklist/RBB "Twenty Best Bets for Student Researchers"RUSA/ALA "Outstanding Reference Source"" ... useful ... Recommended for public libraries and undergraduates."

Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism PDF Author: Fredric Jameson
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822310907
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.