From this week's reading assignments, I gathered quite a bit of knowledge in the postmodernist features. In retrospect, I was a bit confused on all the features and point of views with postmodernism vs. postmodernist. The two readings being of Barthelme's "The School" and "The Lady With Dog", by Chekhov. These two works were odd and similar. I identified a feature that I thought would work best for "The School", "There is no such thing as truth." I chose this feature because after all the death these students encountered, in the end the teacher had no real conclusion on where all the deceased had gone. The students feared this conclusion and came up with various "alternate endings" for those that had passed. There is no truth because as children we are taught to lie to protect others. Before this moment occurs children are brutally honest and at this point truth is gone because despite not having been told there is a Heaven or Hell, ashes to ashes, or nothing happened they are just gone. The children lie to themselves to get on with life. The truth is not found because we don't know why everything seemed to die. Bad luck or not life is a cycle. The children moved on surprisingly with a new gerbil. …show more content…
One in a classroom and another in Yalta. Death surrounds "The School" and lust and confusion are the main flaws in "The Lady With The Dog." I did not like the first reading but what intrigued by the old man and young woman. Both were a depressing letdown that went on and on. I did not want to hear about something else dying nor did I want to hear the old man was being such a selfish chauvinist. Although at the end I could see this as a painting. The students though as a dark comedy piece performed in a play. There is no truth in the endings of these two stories. Death happens and... Depression and Infidelity.. let downs. No one lived with
Postmodernism can be defined as a rejection of the idea that there are certain unequivocal truths or grand narratives (such as capitalism, faith or science) and as a belief that there are multiple ways of understanding anything, whether it be it culture, philosophy, art, literature, films, etc, or even television... Television reflects the mass-produced society we live in and certain shows exhibit many of the archetypes of postmodernism that have become prevalent in other art forms. Postmodernism can be useful for understanding contemporary television it can help us to relate to the ever-changing world we live in. Television shows like ABC’s Lost (ABC, 2004-2010) dabble in matters of intertextuality, questioning of grand narratives and, amongst others, a manipulation of time through use of flashbacks, flash-forwards and, uniquely to Lost, the flash-sideways.
In the novel The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon, the author brings us into the world of a 15 year old boy living with Autism. Life for the protagonist, Christopher is not placid, as it is essential he make difficult life decisions that modify his routine life. The story culminates with Christopher residing with his mother, Judy. However, there are numerous reasons that Judy does not make for a suitable guardian, subsequently Christopher should not be residing with his mother and instead his father, Ed. Judy’s personality and character traits make her an unstable and unpredictable person who has established multiple times that she cannot face her problems and instead chooses to run away. While Judy is ill equipped to care for Christopher, Ed has all the qualities needed in a good guardian, he is responsible, and very patient with Christopher.
“Till death do us part,” a sentence many people look forward to saying at some point in their lives. Modern culture emphasizes the importance of a lasting marriage. Why then, if a lasting marriage is what we wish and work for, are the statistics for affairs extremely high? As humans we crave love. We want to be intimate, have a partner to share our life with, to feel appreciated and desired. As humans we are animals. However, as humans we have animalistic instincts. Chemicals and hormones drive our actions. This is natural, too. As in Chekhov’s The Lady With The Dog, there are multiple factors that can lead to infidelity in a marriage. By creating a story in which the main characters are unfaithful to their spouses, Chekhov invites his
Infidelity is depicted as an extremely negative thing in the United States, and is often blamed for trust issues, psychologically damaging the spouse and their children, tearing apart marriages and families and more. People who commit adultery are often shamed and told how wrong what they did is and what a terrible person they are for doing it. According to the Journal of Martial and Family by the Associated Press, however, 41% of “marriages where one or both spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional.” Clearly, while infidelity is generally viewed negative by society, many people either decide that it is not as negative as it is portrayed, or do not care and do it anyway. “The Lady with the Pet Dog” and “The Storm” both go against the typical view of adultery being a negative thing in a relationship by showing that it can actually have a beneficial outcome and leave some, if not all people happier.
Postmodernism movement started in the 1960’s, carrying on until present. James Morley defined the postmodernism movement as “a rejection of the sovereign autonomous individual with an emphasis upon anarchic collective anonymous experience.” In other words, postmodernism rejects what has been established and makes emphasis on combined revolutionary experiences. Postmodernism can be said it is the "derivate" of modernism; it follows most of the same ideas than modernism but resist the very idea of boundaries. According to our lecture notes “Dominant culture uses perception against others to maintain authority.”
Anton Chekhov’s “Misery” and “Lady with a Pet Dog” are literary works whom use isolation and despair as central metaphors in the explanation of our decaying world. Therefore, the loss of sympathy and the ignorance of others make it almost impossible to understand one another. And so, the metaphors used by Chekhov are solid to the point where it co-exists in unison with the story. The story “Lady with a Pet Dog” tells a tale of a forbidden love. Nevertheless, the decay of marriage plays an important role as Dimitri’s and Anna’s despair begin when they find the love that has been absent in each’s respective household.
While modernists viewed people as autonomous (capable of independent rational thought), postmodernists see human identity and thinking as the product of culture. (Xenos Christian Fellowship, 2005). The postmodern main assumption here is that culture and society create individuals as well as all their thoughts and attitudes. Lolita and A Streetcar Named Desire both treat of Cultural Relativism, which is the view that each culture has it's own truths that are relevant to them, but not relevant to other cultures. (Wikipedia, 2005)
You may be wondering a lot of things. What is post-truth? What kind of a career is college? How could post-truth possibly apply to college? Well, you’re in luck, because I will be answering all of your questions. I’ll even go deeper into what exactly ‘truth’ is. You may not have thought about this before, but truth in itself can be rather hard to define.
Yet, in certain theoretical writings about postmodernism, there seems to be no confusion at all. Instead, what has been described appears as an-aesthetic: a style, or a poetics, that deadens and numbs a tendency towards the aesthetic in postmodern literature. Jean-François Lyotard describes postmodern writing as putting “forward the unpresentable in presenatation itself; that which denies itself the solace of good forms” (81). Linda Hutcheon even suggests that postmodern poetics might, instead, be referred to as “a ‘problematics’” (224). In her book The Poetics of Postmodernism, Hutcheon focuses on an-aesthetic forms in the critical and literary writings on and within postmodernism without any consideration of the aesthetic.
Anton Chekhov’s short story The Lady with the Dog focuses on a temporary affair between two married lovers. This short story illustrates the abnormal things that normal people will do when they get put in certain environments. This short story was written in the late 1890’s, but demonstrates deep insight into how people behave and react when they are exposed to different social dynamics and different social environments. The field of social psychology didn’t formally start until the 1950’s, but Anton Chekhov clearly understood how social anonymity emboldens and empowers people to do rash or unexpected things. The psychology of anonymity involves a loss of self-awareness of the social group, which often contributes to socially deviant behaviors like disregarding society’s strict moral standards and interpersonal rules. While Anton Chekhov’s short story doesn’t delve into this deindividuation process, it does reveal more about the
Where does truth lie? Postmodernism is a literary movement of the twentieth century that attempts to show that the answer to this question cannot be completely determined. Characteristics of postmodern works include a mixing of different genres, random time changes, and the use of technology that all aid in presenting a common postmodern theme that truth doesn’t lie in one story, place or person. The novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer encompasses these postmodern characteristics combining together show how the truth cannot always be attained.
The readers all into the death sequence trying to absorb all the absurd deaths occurring due to heart attack, suicides, being knifed, and excavating the building. And then a sudden disruption in death sequence, “Where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? Asked the children expecting an answer from Edgar. Edgar’s denial about knowing where did they all go made children ask more mature questions like “Is death that gives meaning to life” which is very weird and amusing at the same time. A direct criticism that arises is the unrealistic approach to the story where just to add a little twist to the plot, the author mentions the kids talking all grown up. Although the whole setup seems a little surreal but the whole scenario puts the readers in a position to think what actually gives meaning to life, death or life? It would be reasonable to say that the writer is just trying to convey uncertainty of life by adding on the most unexpected elements, like death and then more deaths, children acting all mature and demanding answers about life, in the story or nonfiction should I say. A satisfying evidence of considering “The School” a non-fiction could be the real events like shifts in the story indicate the ups and downs in the life, school is the place where we learn most of the values and the writer is trying to recapitulate the mother nature’s cycle of life and death to its readers and hence the name “The
In Anton Chekhov's "Lady with the Pet Dog" and Joyce Carol Oates's version of the short story of the same title, both authors wrote from different perspectives but retained the use of the third-person point of view. Chekhov's perspective was through the male character's point of view, while Oates's perspective was through the female character's point of view. Chekhov focuses on the male lover, Gurov, and his thoughts on his affair with a woman named Anna. Similarly, Oates focuses on Anna's emotions and state of being on her affair with Gurov. However, Chekhov's point of view on Gurov's affair was seen as positive and accepted with no feelings of guilt or shame for his actions; while Oates's point of view on Anna's affair was negative and unacceptable, displaying emotional chaos and vulnerability. The story was written more effectively through Oates's point of view due to the realistic description of Anna's emotions on her affair with Gurov, than the lack of sensible description of Gurov's view on the affair written by Chekhov's.
Postmodernism is one of the most controversial and influential intellectual movements to appear in the last fifty years. In order to understand postmodernism, it would be wise to begin with a definition of modernism. Modernism is a philosophy based on the belief that through Enlightenment values of rationality and the absolute truth of science, the human race will evolve into a utopia. Modernists are Eurocentric, humanistic, and optimistic. Postmodernism is essentially a rejection of modernism and all Enlightenment values. More importantly, postmodernism looks upon the "modern" world with increased cynicism and disappointment. Key themes in postmodern thought include irony, arbitrary actions, intertexture, surface and superficiality, self-consciousness, skepticism, multiple perspectives, and relativism. In Anthony Minghella's film The English Patient, postmodernism is addressed using all of these themes in interrelated situations.
In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard has a heart trouble. People think she will have a heart attack if they just tell her the truth. But after they tell her that her husband is dead, she unlike many women that with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance, she just weeps once and goes back to her own room and locks the door. But after she meditates for a while, she realizes that the death of her husband can bring her freedom. And a monstrous joy appears, she knew that there would be no powerful will bending her and she could be free no matter in body and in soul. Kate Chopin wanted to show us a long term marriage can “kill” the romance. For example, in “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. and Mr. Mallard loved each other before they married. But after their marriage, Mrs. Mallard didn’t love Mr. Mallard anymore, maybe sometimes she did. But in most of the time, their marriage became a trap of Mrs. Mallard. She thought she lived for her husband but not herself in this marriage and she was young, with a hair and calm face before they were married, after his death, she can live for herself, this is the “freedom” that Mrs. Mallard thought of.