Date of Award
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Dimino, Andrea
Keywords
Post Modernism, American Fiction, Literature
Area of Concentration
English
Abstract
This thesis concerns the search for a literary movement or structure of feeling that historically comes after postmodernism in American fiction. The bulk of this investigation comprises the analyses of three literary texts: David Foster Wallace’s short story “Good Old Neon” (2004), Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections (2001), and David Milch’s HBO television series Deadwood (2004-2006). I introduce these texts as important elements in identifying a transitional period between postmodern and post-postmodern dominance in twenty-first century American literature. In each chapter, I interpret the text’s relationship to literary postmodernism and the ways in which these texts posit a conceptual alternative to postmodernism that can, for now, be called post-postmodernism. My analysis of “Good Old Neon” establishes a diametric opposition between ‘negative’ postmodern hallmarks of deconstructive irony, cynicism, and metafiction; and ‘positive’ assertions of sentimentality, conscious naiveté, and single-coded language. In The Corrections, I note an intertextual self-distancing from other contemporary postmodern novels that are less effective at connecting with real-world society and culture than with works within literary postmodernism itself. Deadwood balances a binary between selfhood and community in which one inevitably subordinates the other, although the series ultimately achieves a harmonious coexistence of the two. I juxtapose these focused analyses with a more expansive investigation of postmodernism and its waning influence on some contemporary writers (including Franzen and Wallace) and literary critics. Though I extract from each text a post-postmodern model that differs from the others, I argue that a broader conception of post-postmodernism is possible through continued examinations of contemporary literary trends and their degree of divergence from postmodernism in the future. I conclude by acknowledging the difficulties inherent in positing an emerging post-postmodern literary movement, but I emphasize the importance of continuing to track the decline of postmodernism and the subsequent rise of post-postmodernism in some literary circles.
Recommended Citation
Sarratt, Trey, "“SOME WEIRD BUNCH OF ANTI-REBELS”: POSTMODERNISM AND THE EMERGENCE OF POST-POSTMODERNISM IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY" (2014). Theses & ETDs. 4936.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4936