Up until the class discussion on Thursday, I had never taken the time to understand what postmodernism meant. I had heard people use it to describe a certain band or artist or writer. After looking up various definitions, the defining characteristic seemed to be the rejection of objective truth/suspicion of meta-narrative. I grouped these two together because I feel like people sometimes perceive meta-narratives as objective truths. One of the ways DeLillo expresses this is through the decreasing power of the written work. I got the feeling that writers were once the spreaders of objective truth, affecting the way their readers understood the world. Bill even admits that that he "used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture" (pg. 41). He even admitted that his writing no longer defines him and no longer has the moral force that it once had. Bill has come to reject the status of novelists, which collectively make up a dying art. They no longer have the aura of truth and enlightenment. Terrorism and uncertainty is becoming the new way of life, the new meta-narrative.
Similar to Dan’s experience, I have heard the term “postmodernism” thrown around in various classes but was never provided with an ample definition of what it was. Of course I did not take the initiative to look it up myself, until now! After looking up various definitions, there were common threads between the different versions of definitions that stood out to me. Postmodernism is characterized by “the problematization of objective truth,” and it “stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality.” In other words, postmodernism questions the notion of objective truth, and the ideal recognizes that apparent realities are socially constructed and therefore subject to change. This is similar to Bandrillard’s postmodernist concept of “simulacra,” which emphasizes culture and the ways it is saturated by images such that people take the images to be reality rather than a representation of reality.
All of these postmodernist definitions and/or concepts can be found in DeLillo’s novel, Mao II. In a way, the character that is Bill represents postmodernism, or he is a postmodernist himself. In the beginning of the novel when he is conversing with Brita while she takes his picture, he says, “In our world we sleep and eat the image and pray to it and wear it too” (37). This is a direct critique of the way our culture uses images not as a representation of reality, but as reality itself. Bill even goes so far as to make images religious; we “pray to it,” making an image seem other worldly and almost holy when it is a mere representation. Later in the novel, Bill proves to be more of the postmodern ideal when he is talking with Charlie. Charlie points out that Bill has a twisted sense of the writer’s place in society, with Bill insisting he’s done nothing dangerous and that his “life is a kind of simulation” (97). This adheres perfectly with Bandrillard’s concept of “simulacra,” or simulation, as well as the idea that reality is socially constructed. It is true that Bill is living in his own reality, but it is one constructed by the culture. He is a recluse because that’s what the people yearn for; they are attracted to the idea of remoteness, and “a person who becomes inaccessible has a grace and a wholeness the rest of us envy” (36). He is giving the people what they want while still building upon and changing the reality that he has created. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point pretty clear. Hopefully, anyway!
Postmodernism as an encompassing term is complicated to say the least. Ironically, while looking up the definition I came across was actually the idea that postmodernism is "indefinable as a truism". The rest of that paragraph was so obscure and ambiguous that I decided not to put all of my faith in it. Later in my search I came across a definition that made some sense to me. Postmodernism is defined as a late 20th century style that "has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematic relationship with any notion of 'art.'" Finally! Something I could wrap my head around! Just in this definition alone, I can see several elements of postmodernism in Mao II.
DeLillo seems to demonstrate in the society of Mao II a distinct loss of the individual and art along with it. The writer has faded in society. The writer's individuality and message has become negated by the media and disaster, which Bill illuminates in his conversation with Brita. Bill argues that "News of disaster is the only narrative people need" (42).
In the novel, it is evident that progress of any sort is unlikely. There is a sense of the longing for order in the characters' lives, but to no avail in the end. Bill tries to restore order in his writing in his attempts at re-writing the same novel for 23 years on end. SImilarly Karen tries to deny that she was nothing more than a pawn of Reverend Moon and instead commits herself to taking comfort in her lack of individuality. Scott realizes that his list-making serves no real purpose other than to distract himself. All three characters seek something more, some missing ideology, some missing hope only to come up empty-handed. Another element of postmodernity that seems evident in Mao II is that of art and images as nothing more than a commodity. Art, writing and media images have lost their deeper value and have been replaced by the terrorists in the role of making "raids on human consciousness.' (41)
DeLillo's novel, Mao II is undoubtedly an example of postmodernist writing regardless of which definition one finds for it.
I’ve experienced the term postmodernism in several courses as well and similar to many of the previous posts I neglected to research this term to fully understand the direction many professors desired discussion to unfold. As we discussed in last Thursdays class Postmodernism began to work its way into the commoner’s vocabulary following World War II. The impact the war had on the world caused many individuals to believe they were living in a new era therefore art and literature must take a new direction as well. While researching the term I discovered that it has been around for quite some time but emerged in academia around the 1980’s and is still often hard to encompass because it covers such a diverse array of topics. I found the topic of the breakdown of high and low culture enlightening. The revelation of postmodernism in recent years has opened many opportunities for the populous formerly segregated by class from enjoying the higher diction of the artistic world. DeLillo expresses postmodernism in Mao II for example Bill the supposed literary genius breaks down the barrier of high and low class by having his works published for the masses of society to read and interpret for themselves. Suppose he was not affected by postmodernism Bill would remain a recluse and either refuse to have his work published or publish his work privately for a certain audience’s eyes only of “worthy status”. DeLillo incorporates many outside elements into his text which presents itself as a metatext. The cover page and references to Andy Warhol, Mao and the Unification Church, Terrorism, historical events mixed with fictional characters all draw attention to the complex compilation of elements in this text.
It was very interesting to me that we began looking at postmodernism in this class because I am also taking English 300 that is based around studying literary theory. It is all relatively new to me but in my text for my other English class Beginning Theory Barry says “the overall result of these shifts is to produce literature which seems dedicated to experimentation and innovation”. I think that Delillo achieved this in multiple ways. The subject matter itself was innovative for the time that it was written. As discussed in class it does not seem that shocking or ground breaking currently, but when it was published, the idea of everyday communal terrorism wasn’t as easy to connect with. Secondly I find his writing style in general innovative. The dialogue is different than any book I have read. It doesn’t seem like people would ever actually speak as they do in the novel, but I think that is what makes the characters so interesting. It also separates more stable characters like Brita because her thoughts seem so much more cohesive.
Like many others I have taken a few classes that mentioned postmodernism. I took Modern Fiction III last Spring and in that class we covered the topic in depth. However, the meaning of the term postmodernism is still a bit unclear for me. Last class started to help make sense of why postmodernism began. I had never heard that it was, in part, a reaction to World War II. This makes sense considering the unprecedented destruction and death that the war brought about. The world was definitely changed after World War II, and it makes sense that writers and their audiences could not go back to a mindset that existed before the war.
As I mentioned, in Modern Fiction III we covered postmodernism. In the class the professor gave us an article by the critic Ihab Hassan titled, "Pluralism in Postmodern Perspective," which listed his eleven definitions (or "definiens") of postmodernism. The concepts are a bit hard to grasp, but they are helpful nonetheless. One key term that he lists is fragmentation, which we discussed in the last class. Another tenet of postmodernism is "Decanonisation." As Hassan explains, all conventions of authority were called into question or "decanonised" after World War II. He writes that "we are witnessing...a massive delegitimation of the mastercodes in society" in the post-WWII culture. He asserts that Postmodernism is boldly subversive, and points out that "the most baleful example is the rampant terrorism of our time."
We see evidence of this rejection of authority throughout Mao II. The terrorists reject the authority of the West. Bill rejects his own image as a literary authority. We might also see how DeLillo's writing style could even be called subversive. He does not write in a conventional way, his sentences are short, choppy, and often move from one distinct thought to the next.
The basic definition I am unraveling out of a huge stream of non-committal and circularly worded explanations, is that postmodernism is a breakdown of accepted ideas, such as, identity, progress, and meaning. Postmodernism is more than just skepticism of the meta-narrative, it is sheer disbelief of set cultural structures. (admittedly my definition is non-committal and circular). An example of breaking down a widely held cultural construction is the intervention by Karen’s family. The way DeLillo wrote the scene made it seem more like brainwashing than Karen’s time in the cult. An intervention is thought of as a warm fuzzy group hug situation, but DeLillo makes it ugly and ineffective. When she told the airport guards she was being kidnapped, it was the truth, and I was pleased to see her get away.
Because so much of Mao II is saturated with images and ideas about images, I read a bit more about Baudrillard's idea of the simulacrum. I found this quote interesting:
"Baudrillard argues that the image passes through several historical states. In its first manifestations, the image reflects a profound reality which is afterwards masked and denaturized. A third step in the evolution of images consists of marking the absence of any profound reality and disclaiming its relation to anything that would be 'more real' than it. It is this third state of the image which is most present in our daily lives." (from here)
What I take this to mean is that it takes time for the reality, as such, to be denatured into simulacra. It occurs through a series of representations and through a series of experiences of those representations. The way that DeLillo represents China, and particularly Mao, shows some of the ways that simulacra emerge from reality.
In one place, Scott and Brita talk about a man and woman walking across the Great Wall towards each other. It's a metaphor for the insane difficulty of establishing a connection, but it also uses the image of the Great Wall, referring to it as the only man-made object that can be seen from space, in a way that makes it more real than the Great Wall itself, I think. The Great Wall is created to be traded as anecdotal information; its original purpose, the Wall itself, has faded into insignificance or even vanished for those of us who have never seen it.
The repeated image of Mao is also a simulacrum, never quite referring directly to his political self. He is indirectly present in the unidentified television footage of Chinese Army in Tiananman Square, existing like an authoritarian ghost. As a series of images by Warhol that Scott experiences in an art museum, Mao is simulacra. Scott then buys Karen a poster of Warhol's Mao II that she looks at and thinks about as though the image was somehow him.
"It was strange how a few lines with a pencil and there he is, some shading in, a scribbled neck and brows." (p 62)
The image of Mao supercedes the reality of Mao. Does is signal back to him? Karen has never seen him in the flesh. She can only have seen pictures, and yet, there he is.
Another time the image of Mao is remembered by Brita, as she thinks about a gallery display of photographs of Warhol, including some by her.
"...Andy tourist-posing in Beijing before the giant portrait of Mao in the main square. He'd said to her, 'The secret of being me is that I'm only half there.'" (p 135)
This is presumably the Mao that gets filtered into Mao II, and the point where Warhol encounters a "masked and denaturized" image of Mao which he in turns reuses in a new image.
During the news about Tiananmen Square, the portrait of Mao in Beijing is shown. The level of detail gets Karen obsessing about whether Warhol included Mao's wart in his version of the portrait. It's an interesting view on the missing original, Mao in the flesh, warts and all. What is left are simulacra, Mao images, that represent attitudes and ideas but don't necessarily have anything to do with Mao as such, only with what our ideas of Mao have become after being exposed over time and through space to a variety of images of him.
I have never really truly understood the concept of postmodern until I researched it for this assignment. As I have understood it to be is that it is a shift in thinking and meaning. After WWII there was a change in the way society looked at everything before them - art, philosophy, architecture, theater and television just to name a few. In Mao II the characters all live in a different reality and yet they are living in the same world. They see life in a different aspect and no one way is truly any better than the other. Bill is a writer and the line between writer and terrorist at times may have been seen as blurred and Scott thinks it is best for him to remain a mystery like a terrorist does until they strike. He is more of a commodity while cloaked in mystery and will be more admired when he is dead and gone.
Most of my time at University has been spent studying the "old dead white guys," as my Brit Lit professor likes to call them. The only time I knowingly came upon postmodern texts was in a creative writing class I took a couple of years ago. My professor told us that the short stories we were reading were examples of postmodernism. While everyone bobbed their heads in recognition, I bowed mine in shame because I had no idea what he was talking about. Too disinterested in the term, I forgot to look it up on the Internet.
But now I finally know what it means! Then, I saw postmodernism characterized by fragmented writing, a focus on the minescule as opposed to the broad ideas of things. Also, some of the postmodern stories we read were just plain weird.
Unlike the "old dead white guys" postmodern authors avoid the making of general statements and/ or truths. Look at Delillo's Mao II, Bill rescinds his years-earlier statement that authors had the power to change cultural perceptions. Maybe they once did. Certainly novels such as Uncle Tom's Cabin had a positive affect on the abolitionist movement. Postmodernism moves away from making general truths. Rather it challenges these truths.
Brita Nilsson attempts a creation of her own meta-narrative by compiling photos of every writer. At the beginning of the novel, she is enthusiastic about this endeavor. However, at the end, we find out that Brita has given up on this meta-narrative because she cannot see the point of it anymore. I think this best exemplifies the idea of postmodernism. It is the moving away from such general truths such as the need to document every writer to the focus on more tangible and independent ideas.
After reading through multiple definitions online, works that fall under the term “postmodernism” seem to be concerned about using one theory or narrative to describe the experiences of different groups and individuals. In the two classes that I have taken where postmodernism is mentioned, it was often paired with the idea of deconstruction. In Critical Theory, language was deconstructed; in Art History, the concept of what constitutes as “art” was deconstructed. The focus is that our ideologies are unstable and ambiguous and can often be challenged.
In Mao II, by being a recluse and refusing to follow the crowd, Bill seems to be the person challenging the common meta-narratives and ideologies of DeLillo’s world. Even the fact that Bill has been working on his novel for two-plus years and is constantly editing and re-editing creates a strong image of instability.
The structure of the story itself is deconstructive because while it is fairly linear, when we are told about past events it is often difficult to determine when exactly we return to the present. For example, when Scott is telling Brita of when he and Karen met, the reader is taken back to that moment, then even further back to Karen’s past and “deprogramming”, then back to Scott and Karen, then back to the present with Scott narrating this story to Brita. It isn’t always clear exactly what time period or even place we were just in until we are yet again in another.
Modernism was a creative movement that exploded in the early 20th century. Its goal was to challenge the traditional values of the Victorian era. As the culture began to change more and more dramatically, postmodernism developed later in the century as a reaction to modernism. When I think of postmodernism in regards to postmodern literature, two characteristics come to mind: experimental structure and motifs to emphasize the author’s challenge of societal beliefs (and perhaps, as we discussed in class, grand-meta narratives).
DeLillo uses both of these characteristics in Mao II. He breaks down his novel into four parts, which are then divided into chapters depending on the length. The chapters themselves are not divided by character situations, but they shift from person to person in various settings. Sometimes I wasn’t told whom the narrator was describing until several sentences into the section. Also, the dialogue lacked the traditional “he said, she said” model, which gave a sense of urgency to various scenes such as the dinner scene in the second part. The time of the novel was difficult to guess—I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I last met the character.
DeLillo’s use of motifs is obvious in this novel; he creates a collage of images (including Warhol, his print “Mao II,” and Coca-Cola) from pop culture to emphasize the theme of controlling identity amid a world of escalating terrorism.
I looked up several definitions of post modernism, and got a number of answers, ranging from anything written/made in the arts after WWII, to anything written/made since 1980. Most definitions seemed to agree on one thing: post modernism involves a rejection of any kind of objective truth, as everything we understand is relative to ourselves, the situation, etc. I guess that defining post modernism kind of goes against the theory's own logic, since it holds that we can never actually say what something is, but I'll ignore that for the time being. I think that the major connection I see between the theory and Mao II is that just as a postmodernist might question the parameters by which we define things, DeLillo is questioning the parameters by which we define writers. That's one of the questions the book keeps exploring... what IS a writer? What are they actually supposed to be doing? In class we keep talking about the way that DeLillo merges the role/function of writers and terrorists. Well, one could argue that by re-shaping the idea of what we consider a writer to be, DeLillo is challenging our own (perhaps too restrictive) understanding, and is therefore writing as a postmodernist would. -Joe Scheiber
Like most others I have heard the term postmodernism, but never studied it for myself. I was surprised to learn that “Modernism” started as early as the 18th century with the European Enlightenment and “Postmodernism” around the middle of the 20th century.
"Postmodernism, like modernism, follows most of these same ideas, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness. Postmodern art (and thought) favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subject."
This is the definition of postmodernism that struck a chord with me. It’s saying that modernism and postmodernism is pretty much the same thing, but what the article further states is that there is a major difference in the two. The attitude toward the ideas makes all the difference. Modernism presents these ideas as tragic while postmodernism celebrates them. Mao II is a great example of postmodern thought with the self-consciousness of the characters, the fragmentation and discontinuity of the dialogue, the de-structured world each character lives in, and the dehumanization of the the writer. DeLillo has taken every form of the definition and incorporated it into Mao II.
Postmodernism as defined by PBS.org is the following: In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.
This definition fits closely with the idea we discussed in class on post modernism as a time in literature where there is no absolute and everything is fragmented and up to interpretation.
Mao II fits the post modern ideas in each of its main characters:
Brita’s interpretation of humanity through her concrete photographs is through her individual view, not the view that the world holds already of these authors. In order to understand them, she must experience them personally and photograph them as proof. Someone telling her about these authors or reading about them is not enough, stemming from the post modern idea of experience over anything else for understanding.
Karen, although she attempts to believe that there is one religion that will unite all of humanity, she is unable to convince the homeless people in the park she attempts to preach to. She makes not progress because there is a lack of universality in this work, a lack of absolute understanding and acceptance of one God and one religion.
Bill is an uncertain character throughout the whole novel. He is uncertain how to finish his book, he is uncertain whether or not he should go to London, and he is uncertain of his fate in the end if he ends up negotiating with terrorists. “Progress is unlikely” also describes the ending of the book perfectly, as Bill dies without being able to talk to the terrorists at all. It is not known whether or not the prisoner is freed. Bill is not allowed to be the hero in post-modern literature because the idea of a good, absolute end to a conflict no longer exists.
Postmodernism in the most literal sense is the movement after the modernist movement of late 19th and early 20th centuries. Postmodernism heavily depends upon what came before and to understand it fully means to understand modernism as well. What modernism represented was the shift away from the conservative enlightenment ideals such as certainty of a higher power and harmonious rational art and music. The modernist movement was a response to the increasing complexities of the world due to scientific knowledge and technology.
Postmodernism is a further fragmentation and deconstruction of literature, music, and art. The genre is involved with the concept of multiple narratives and meta-narratives as opposed to the objective truth sought after by the scientific modernist movement. To me, it seems like postmodernism is the most skeptical movement of relationships, roles, and language.
DeLillo’s Mao II is definitely a postmodern novel due to the fact it questions the very role of writers. The role of the writer in a society was to influence society which has been diminished and commercialized. The book deals with multiple narratives exhibited by the news as a “global narrative” and questions globalization. The book deals has a heavy emphasis on dialogue and the motivations of the characters in the book.
I had never really understood, or tried to understand, the concept of post-modernism until this assignment. While I was looking up some definitions the first few that I came across were still long-winded and confusing. A lot of articles said it was the movement away from modernism or that it stemmed from modernism, so I looked that up as well in order to get a better understanding. It seems to me that modernism is broader and encompasses overarching universal ideas for large groups of people. On the other hand, postmodernism challenges these ideas, goes along with the idea that people have their own personal constructs. It is how each individual interprets their own personal reality; experience rather than ideas/thoughts prevails.
In DeLillo’s Mao II I think post modernism is clearly seen in each characters experience throughout the novel. The novel is fragmented and therefore the way it is written creates their own experience throughout the novel. To me, this furthers the idea that there is no one overarching experience that can be had for people. Furthermore, when Bill dies, I think it shows that a perfect ending (perfect idea for all), such as him becoming a hero, does not exist and that each ending is different.
DeLillo does a wonderful job of capturing the concept of distrust within the self. Beyond the awkward conversations on the meaning of life and the individual's place in it during the photo shoots, DeLillo narrates the novel in a style that leans more towards an abrassive manner towards the reader. DeLillo abruptly changes the time frame, switching between past and present with as little as a new paragraph to make the signal. Furthermore, the voice of the narrator alters between chapters. The early chapters speak witha straight forward, relatively simple over the shoulder third person perspective. Howevr, chapter 6 makes changes to a much more intimate tone with the reader. It remans just outside one character's perspective, but it begins to speak to the reader. The use of "bud" on page 80 seems out of place in the narration, "Their hands were all over her and she thought they would tear her clothes away just to enjoy the noise of ripped Korean acrylic and so Scott moved closer in the darkened room, showing gentle concern, the tender recompense of the other side of the male equation, but no sympathetic sex just yet, bud". By changing the voice of the narator and switching through time frames unannounced, DeLillo cause the narrator to not just be unreliable, but untrustworthy. The reader is always on edge and second guessing what is meant to be reality. DeLillo's style is a purposeful ripple in the suspension of disbeleif.
I don't consider myself well-versed in literary topics, so most of my knowledge of postmodernism comes from what I've researched on my own for this class thus far, or else what I hear my friends with English or Lit majors argue with each other. The best way that I can think to describe it is to say that it blurs the line between literary fiction and contemporary society in a way that no other style has previously attempted. Modernism was the predecessor of postmodernism in this sense, as it was characterized by the same cultural ideas that were coming into the main scene around the time of the peak of its popularity: individualist attitudes, distrust of major institutions, and a less naive consideration of the world in general. It follows that postmodernism further embodies the ideas that have significantly shaped our society. In stark contrast to the opposite literary extreme of fantasy stories where there is a clear distinction of good and bad, and always a happy ending, postmodern literature doesn’t give the reader false hope, nor does he offer a guarantee that everything will work out; this is because the real world is the same. The atrocities and shocks that we’ve seen committed on our televisions have infiltrated even the fictitious aspects of our minds. DeLillo uses the ideas of real tragedies and atrocities in the idea of a terrorist group kidnapping a represented person for ransom or political agenda, and he embodies the uncertain aspect of postmodernism by offering limited descriptions of the characters, limited insight into their thoughts (in lieu of their muddled dialogue), and, especially, limited resolution to the plot of the book. The reader is left feeling uncertain and discontent, yet with a feeling that some kind of moral or knowledge has been gained from the whole experience—just like a real life tragedy.
Up until the class discussion on Thursday, I had never taken the time to understand what postmodernism meant. I had heard people use it to describe a certain band or artist or writer. After looking up various definitions, the defining characteristic seemed to be the rejection of objective truth/suspicion of meta-narrative. I grouped these two together because I feel like people sometimes perceive meta-narratives as objective truths.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways DeLillo expresses this is through the decreasing power of the written work. I got the feeling that writers were once the spreaders of objective truth, affecting the way their readers understood the world. Bill even admits that that he "used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture" (pg. 41). He even admitted that his writing no longer defines him and no longer has the moral force that it once had. Bill has come to reject the status of novelists, which collectively make up a dying art. They no longer have the aura of truth and enlightenment. Terrorism and uncertainty is becoming the new way of life, the new meta-narrative.
Similar to Dan’s experience, I have heard the term “postmodernism” thrown around in various classes but was never provided with an ample definition of what it was. Of course I did not take the initiative to look it up myself, until now! After looking up various definitions, there were common threads between the different versions of definitions that stood out to me. Postmodernism is characterized by “the problematization of objective truth,” and it “stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality.” In other words, postmodernism questions the notion of objective truth, and the ideal recognizes that apparent realities are socially constructed and therefore subject to change. This is similar to Bandrillard’s postmodernist concept of “simulacra,” which emphasizes culture and the ways it is saturated by images such that people take the images to be reality rather than a representation of reality.
ReplyDeleteAll of these postmodernist definitions and/or concepts can be found in DeLillo’s novel, Mao II. In a way, the character that is Bill represents postmodernism, or he is a postmodernist himself. In the beginning of the novel when he is conversing with Brita while she takes his picture, he says, “In our world we sleep and eat the image and pray to it and wear it too” (37). This is a direct critique of the way our culture uses images not as a representation of reality, but as reality itself. Bill even goes so far as to make images religious; we “pray to it,” making an image seem other worldly and almost holy when it is a mere representation. Later in the novel, Bill proves to be more of the postmodern ideal when he is talking with Charlie. Charlie points out that Bill has a twisted sense of the writer’s place in society, with Bill insisting he’s done nothing dangerous and that his “life is a kind of simulation” (97). This adheres perfectly with Bandrillard’s concept of “simulacra,” or simulation, as well as the idea that reality is socially constructed. It is true that Bill is living in his own reality, but it is one constructed by the culture. He is a recluse because that’s what the people yearn for; they are attracted to the idea of remoteness, and “a person who becomes inaccessible has a grace and a wholeness the rest of us envy” (36). He is giving the people what they want while still building upon and changing the reality that he has created. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point pretty clear. Hopefully, anyway!
see:
ReplyDeletehttp://megami-de-noir.blogspot.com/2011/01/postmodernism.html
Postmodernism as an encompassing term is complicated to say the least. Ironically, while looking up the definition I came across was actually the idea that postmodernism is "indefinable as a truism". The rest of that paragraph was so obscure and ambiguous that I decided not to put all of my faith in it. Later in my search I came across a definition that made some sense to me. Postmodernism is defined as a late 20th century style that "has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematic relationship with any notion of 'art.'" Finally! Something I could wrap my head around! Just in this definition alone, I can see several elements of postmodernism in Mao II.
ReplyDeleteDeLillo seems to demonstrate in the society of Mao II a distinct loss of the individual and art along with it. The writer has faded in society. The writer's individuality and message has become negated by the media and disaster, which Bill illuminates in his conversation with Brita. Bill argues that "News of disaster is the only narrative people need" (42).
In the novel, it is evident that progress of any sort is unlikely. There is a sense of the longing for order in the characters' lives, but to no avail in the end. Bill tries to restore order in his writing in his attempts at re-writing the same novel for 23 years on end. SImilarly Karen tries to deny that she was nothing more than a pawn of Reverend Moon and instead commits herself to taking comfort in her lack of individuality. Scott realizes that his list-making serves no real purpose other than to distract himself. All three characters seek something more, some missing ideology, some missing hope only to come up empty-handed.
Another element of postmodernity that seems evident in Mao II is that of art and images as nothing more than a commodity. Art, writing and media images have lost their deeper value and have been replaced by the terrorists in the role of making "raids on human consciousness.' (41)
DeLillo's novel, Mao II is undoubtedly an example of postmodernist writing regardless of which definition one finds for it.
I’ve experienced the term postmodernism in several courses as well and similar to many of the previous posts I neglected to research this term to fully understand the direction many professors desired discussion to unfold. As we discussed in last Thursdays class Postmodernism began to work its way into the commoner’s vocabulary following World War II. The impact the war had on the world caused many individuals to believe they were living in a new era therefore art and literature must take a new direction as well. While researching the term I discovered that it has been around for quite some time but emerged in academia around the 1980’s and is still often hard to encompass because it covers such a diverse array of topics. I found the topic of the breakdown of high and low culture enlightening. The revelation of postmodernism in recent years has opened many opportunities for the populous formerly segregated by class from enjoying the higher diction of the artistic world.
ReplyDeleteDeLillo expresses postmodernism in Mao II for example Bill the supposed literary genius breaks down the barrier of high and low class by having his works published for the masses of society to read and interpret for themselves. Suppose he was not affected by postmodernism Bill would remain a recluse and either refuse to have his work published or publish his work privately for a certain audience’s eyes only of “worthy status”. DeLillo incorporates many outside elements into his text which presents itself as a metatext. The cover page and references to Andy Warhol, Mao and the Unification Church, Terrorism, historical events mixed with fictional characters all draw attention to the complex compilation of elements in this text.
It was very interesting to me that we began looking at postmodernism in this class because I am also taking English 300 that is based around studying literary theory. It is all relatively new to me but in my text for my other English class Beginning Theory Barry says “the overall result of these shifts is to produce literature which seems dedicated to experimentation and innovation”. I think that Delillo achieved this in multiple ways. The subject matter itself was innovative for the time that it was written. As discussed in class it does not seem that shocking or ground breaking currently, but when it was published, the idea of everyday communal terrorism wasn’t as easy to connect with. Secondly I find his writing style in general innovative. The dialogue is different than any book I have read. It doesn’t seem like people would ever actually speak as they do in the novel, but I think that is what makes the characters so interesting. It also separates more stable characters like Brita because her thoughts seem so much more cohesive.
ReplyDeleteLike many others I have taken a few classes that mentioned postmodernism. I took Modern Fiction III last Spring and in that class we covered the topic in depth. However, the meaning of the term postmodernism is still a bit unclear for me. Last class started to help make sense of why postmodernism began. I had never heard that it was, in part, a reaction to World War II. This makes sense considering the unprecedented destruction and death that the war brought about. The world was definitely changed after World War II, and it makes sense that writers and their audiences could not go back to a mindset that existed before the war.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned, in Modern Fiction III we covered postmodernism. In the class the professor gave us an article by the critic Ihab Hassan titled, "Pluralism in Postmodern Perspective," which listed his eleven definitions (or "definiens") of postmodernism. The concepts are a bit hard to grasp, but they are helpful nonetheless. One key term that he lists is fragmentation, which we discussed in the last class. Another tenet of postmodernism is "Decanonisation." As Hassan explains, all conventions of authority were called into question or "decanonised" after World War II. He writes that "we are witnessing...a massive delegitimation of the mastercodes in society" in the post-WWII culture. He asserts that Postmodernism is boldly subversive, and points out that "the most baleful example is the rampant terrorism of our time."
We see evidence of this rejection of authority throughout Mao II. The terrorists reject the authority of the West. Bill rejects his own image as a literary authority. We might also see how DeLillo's writing style could even be called subversive. He does not write in a conventional way, his sentences are short, choppy, and often move from one distinct thought to the next.
L. Schuster
ReplyDeleteThe basic definition I am unraveling out of a huge stream of non-committal and circularly worded explanations, is that postmodernism is a breakdown of accepted ideas, such as, identity, progress, and meaning. Postmodernism is more than just skepticism of the meta-narrative, it is sheer disbelief of set cultural structures. (admittedly my definition is non-committal and circular).
An example of breaking down a widely held cultural construction is the intervention by Karen’s family. The way DeLillo wrote the scene made it seem more like brainwashing than Karen’s time in the cult. An intervention is thought of as a warm fuzzy group hug situation, but DeLillo makes it ugly and ineffective. When she told the airport guards she was being kidnapped, it was the truth, and I was pleased to see her get away.
Because so much of Mao II is saturated with images and ideas about images, I read a bit more about Baudrillard's idea of the simulacrum. I found this quote interesting:
ReplyDelete"Baudrillard argues that the image passes through several historical states. In its first manifestations, the image reflects a profound reality which is afterwards masked and denaturized. A third step in the evolution of images consists of marking the absence of any profound reality and disclaiming its relation to anything that would be 'more real' than it. It is this third state of the image which is most present in our daily lives." (from here)
What I take this to mean is that it takes time for the reality, as such, to be denatured into simulacra. It occurs through a series of representations and through a series of experiences of those representations. The way that DeLillo represents China, and particularly Mao, shows some of the ways that simulacra emerge from reality.
In one place, Scott and Brita talk about a man and woman walking across the Great Wall towards each other. It's a metaphor for the insane difficulty of establishing a connection, but it also uses the image of the Great Wall, referring to it as the only man-made object that can be seen from space, in a way that makes it more real than the Great Wall itself, I think. The Great Wall is created to be traded as anecdotal information; its original purpose, the Wall itself, has faded into insignificance or even vanished for those of us who have never seen it.
The repeated image of Mao is also a simulacrum, never quite referring directly to his political self. He is indirectly present in the unidentified television footage of Chinese Army in Tiananman Square, existing like an authoritarian ghost. As a series of images by Warhol that Scott experiences in an art museum, Mao is simulacra. Scott then buys Karen a poster of Warhol's Mao II that she looks at and thinks about as though the image was somehow him.
"It was strange how a few lines with a pencil and there he is, some shading in, a scribbled neck and brows." (p 62)
The image of Mao supercedes the reality of Mao. Does is signal back to him? Karen has never seen him in the flesh. She can only have seen pictures, and yet, there he is.
Another time the image of Mao is remembered by Brita, as she thinks about a gallery display of photographs of Warhol, including some by her.
"...Andy tourist-posing in Beijing before the giant portrait of Mao in the main square. He'd said to her, 'The secret of being me is that I'm only half there.'" (p 135)
This is presumably the Mao that gets filtered into Mao II, and the point where Warhol encounters a "masked and denaturized" image of Mao which he in turns reuses in a new image.
During the news about Tiananmen Square, the portrait of Mao in Beijing is shown. The level of detail gets Karen obsessing about whether Warhol included Mao's wart in his version of the portrait. It's an interesting view on the missing original, Mao in the flesh, warts and all. What is left are simulacra, Mao images, that represent attitudes and ideas but don't necessarily have anything to do with Mao as such, only with what our ideas of Mao have become after being exposed over time and through space to a variety of images of him.
I have never really truly understood the concept of postmodern until I researched it for this assignment. As I have understood it to be is that it is a shift in thinking and meaning. After WWII there was a change in the way society looked at everything before them - art, philosophy, architecture, theater and television just to name a few.
ReplyDeleteIn Mao II the characters all live in a different reality and yet they are living in the same world. They see life in a different aspect and no one way is truly any better than the other. Bill is a writer and the line between writer and terrorist at times may have been seen as blurred and Scott thinks it is best for him to remain a mystery like a terrorist does until they strike. He is more of a commodity while cloaked in mystery and will be more admired when he is dead and gone.
Most of my time at University has been spent studying the "old dead white guys," as my Brit Lit professor likes to call them. The only time I knowingly came upon postmodern texts was in a creative writing class I took a couple of years ago. My professor told us that the short stories we were reading were examples of postmodernism. While everyone bobbed their heads in recognition, I bowed mine in shame because I had no idea what he was talking about. Too disinterested in the term, I forgot to look it up on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteBut now I finally know what it means! Then, I saw postmodernism characterized by fragmented writing, a focus on the minescule as opposed to the broad ideas of things. Also, some of the postmodern stories we read were just plain weird.
Unlike the "old dead white guys" postmodern authors avoid the making of general statements and/ or truths. Look at Delillo's Mao II, Bill rescinds his years-earlier statement that authors had the power to change cultural perceptions. Maybe they once did. Certainly novels such as Uncle Tom's Cabin had a positive affect on the abolitionist movement. Postmodernism moves away from making general truths. Rather it challenges these truths.
Brita Nilsson attempts a creation of her own meta-narrative by compiling photos of every writer. At the beginning of the novel, she is enthusiastic about this endeavor. However, at the end, we find out that Brita has given up on this meta-narrative because she cannot see the point of it anymore. I think this best exemplifies the idea of postmodernism. It is the moving away from such general truths such as the need to document every writer to the focus on more tangible and independent ideas.
After reading through multiple definitions online, works that fall under the term “postmodernism” seem to be concerned about using one theory or narrative to describe the experiences of different groups and individuals. In the two classes that I have taken where postmodernism is mentioned, it was often paired with the idea of deconstruction. In Critical Theory, language was deconstructed; in Art History, the concept of what constitutes as “art” was deconstructed. The focus is that our ideologies are unstable and ambiguous and can often be challenged.
ReplyDeleteIn Mao II, by being a recluse and refusing to follow the crowd, Bill seems to be the person challenging the common meta-narratives and ideologies of DeLillo’s world. Even the fact that Bill has been working on his novel for two-plus years and is constantly editing and re-editing creates a strong image of instability.
The structure of the story itself is deconstructive because while it is fairly linear, when we are told about past events it is often difficult to determine when exactly we return to the present. For example, when Scott is telling Brita of when he and Karen met, the reader is taken back to that moment, then even further back to Karen’s past and “deprogramming”, then back to Scott and Karen, then back to the present with Scott narrating this story to Brita. It isn’t always clear exactly what time period or even place we were just in until we are yet again in another.
Modernism was a creative movement that exploded in the early 20th century. Its goal was to challenge the traditional values of the Victorian era. As the culture began to change more and more dramatically, postmodernism developed later in the century as a reaction to modernism. When I think of postmodernism in regards to postmodern literature, two characteristics come to mind: experimental structure and motifs to emphasize the author’s challenge of societal beliefs (and perhaps, as we discussed in class, grand-meta narratives).
ReplyDeleteDeLillo uses both of these characteristics in Mao II. He breaks down his novel into four parts, which are then divided into chapters depending on the length. The chapters themselves are not divided by character situations, but they shift from person to person in various settings. Sometimes I wasn’t told whom the narrator was describing until several sentences into the section. Also, the dialogue lacked the traditional “he said, she said” model, which gave a sense of urgency to various scenes such as the dinner scene in the second part. The time of the novel was difficult to guess—I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I last met the character.
DeLillo’s use of motifs is obvious in this novel; he creates a collage of images (including Warhol, his print “Mao II,” and Coca-Cola) from pop culture to emphasize the theme of controlling identity amid a world of escalating terrorism.
I looked up several definitions of post modernism, and got a number of answers, ranging from anything written/made in the arts after WWII, to anything written/made since 1980. Most definitions seemed to agree on one thing: post modernism involves a rejection of any kind of objective truth, as everything we understand is relative to ourselves, the situation, etc. I guess that defining post modernism kind of goes against the theory's own logic, since it holds that we can never actually say what something is, but I'll ignore that for the time being.
ReplyDeleteI think that the major connection I see between the theory and Mao II is that just as a postmodernist might question the parameters by which we define things, DeLillo is questioning the parameters by which we define writers. That's one of the questions the book keeps exploring... what IS a writer? What are they actually supposed to be doing? In class we keep talking about the way that DeLillo merges the role/function of writers and terrorists. Well, one could argue that by re-shaping the idea of what we consider a writer to be, DeLillo is challenging our own (perhaps too restrictive) understanding, and is therefore writing as a postmodernist would.
-Joe Scheiber
Like most others I have heard the term postmodernism, but never studied it for myself. I was surprised to learn that “Modernism” started as early as the 18th century with the European Enlightenment and “Postmodernism” around the middle of the 20th century.
ReplyDelete"Postmodernism, like modernism, follows most of these same ideas, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness. Postmodern art (and thought) favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subject."
This is the definition of postmodernism that struck a chord with me. It’s saying that modernism and postmodernism is pretty much the same thing, but what the article further states is that there is a major difference in the two. The attitude toward the ideas makes all the difference. Modernism presents these ideas as tragic while postmodernism celebrates them. Mao II is a great example of postmodern thought with the self-consciousness of the characters, the fragmentation and discontinuity of the dialogue, the de-structured world each character lives in, and the dehumanization of the the writer. DeLillo has taken every form of the definition and incorporated it into Mao II.
Postmodernism as defined by PBS.org is the following:
ReplyDeleteIn the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.
This definition fits closely with the idea we discussed in class on post modernism as a time in literature where there is no absolute and everything is fragmented and up to interpretation.
Mao II fits the post modern ideas in each of its main characters:
Brita’s interpretation of humanity through her concrete photographs is through her individual view, not the view that the world holds already of these authors. In order to understand them, she must experience them personally and photograph them as proof. Someone telling her about these authors or reading about them is not enough, stemming from the post modern idea of experience over anything else for understanding.
Karen, although she attempts to believe that there is one religion that will unite all of humanity, she is unable to convince the homeless people in the park she attempts to preach to. She makes not progress because there is a lack of universality in this work, a lack of absolute understanding and acceptance of one God and one religion.
Bill is an uncertain character throughout the whole novel. He is uncertain how to finish his book, he is uncertain whether or not he should go to London, and he is uncertain of his fate in the end if he ends up negotiating with terrorists. “Progress is unlikely” also describes the ending of the book perfectly, as Bill dies without being able to talk to the terrorists at all. It is not known whether or not the prisoner is freed. Bill is not allowed to be the hero in post-modern literature because the idea of a good, absolute end to a conflict no longer exists.
Postmodernism in the most literal sense is the movement after the modernist movement of late 19th and early 20th centuries. Postmodernism heavily depends upon what came before and to understand it fully means to understand modernism as well. What modernism represented was the shift away from the conservative enlightenment ideals such as certainty of a higher power and harmonious rational art and music. The modernist movement was a response to the increasing complexities of the world due to scientific knowledge and technology.
ReplyDeletePostmodernism is a further fragmentation and deconstruction of literature, music, and art. The genre is involved with the concept of multiple narratives and meta-narratives as opposed to the objective truth sought after by the scientific modernist movement. To me, it seems like postmodernism is the most skeptical movement of relationships, roles, and language.
DeLillo’s Mao II is definitely a postmodern novel due to the fact it questions the very role of writers. The role of the writer in a society was to influence society which has been diminished and commercialized. The book deals with multiple narratives exhibited by the news as a “global narrative” and questions globalization. The book deals has a heavy emphasis on dialogue and the motivations of the characters in the book.
I had never really understood, or tried to understand, the concept of post-modernism until this assignment. While I was looking up some definitions the first few that I came across were still long-winded and confusing. A lot of articles said it was the movement away from modernism or that it stemmed from modernism, so I looked that up as well in order to get a better understanding. It seems to me that modernism is broader and encompasses overarching universal ideas for large groups of people. On the other hand, postmodernism challenges these ideas, goes along with the idea that people have their own personal constructs. It is how each individual interprets their own personal reality; experience rather than ideas/thoughts prevails.
ReplyDeleteIn DeLillo’s Mao II I think post modernism is clearly seen in each characters experience throughout the novel. The novel is fragmented and therefore the way it is written creates their own experience throughout the novel. To me, this furthers the idea that there is no one overarching experience that can be had for people. Furthermore, when Bill dies, I think it shows that a perfect ending (perfect idea for all), such as him becoming a hero, does not exist and that each ending is different.
DeLillo does a wonderful job of capturing the concept of distrust within the self. Beyond the awkward conversations on the meaning of life and the individual's place in it during the photo shoots, DeLillo narrates the novel in a style that leans more towards an abrassive manner towards the reader. DeLillo abruptly changes the time frame, switching between past and present with as little as a new paragraph to make the signal. Furthermore, the voice of the narrator alters between chapters. The early chapters speak witha straight forward, relatively simple over the shoulder third person perspective. Howevr, chapter 6 makes changes to a much more intimate tone with the reader. It remans just outside one character's perspective, but it begins to speak to the reader. The use of "bud" on page 80 seems out of place in the narration, "Their hands were all over her and she thought they would tear her clothes away just to enjoy the noise of ripped Korean acrylic and so Scott moved closer in the darkened room, showing gentle concern, the tender recompense of the other side of the male equation, but no sympathetic sex just yet, bud". By changing the voice of the narator and switching through time frames unannounced, DeLillo cause the narrator to not just be unreliable, but untrustworthy. The reader is always on edge and second guessing what is meant to be reality. DeLillo's style is a purposeful ripple in the suspension of disbeleif.
ReplyDeleteI don't consider myself well-versed in literary topics, so most of my knowledge of postmodernism comes from what I've researched on my own for this class thus far, or else what I hear my friends with English or Lit majors argue with each other. The best way that I can think to describe it is to say that it blurs the line between literary fiction and contemporary society in a way that no other style has previously attempted. Modernism was the predecessor of postmodernism in this sense, as it was characterized by the same cultural ideas that were coming into the main scene around the time of the peak of its popularity: individualist attitudes, distrust of major institutions, and a less naive consideration of the world in general. It follows that postmodernism further embodies the ideas that have significantly shaped our society. In stark contrast to the opposite literary extreme of fantasy stories where there is a clear distinction of good and bad, and always a happy ending, postmodern literature doesn’t give the reader false hope, nor does he offer a guarantee that everything will work out; this is because the real world is the same. The atrocities and shocks that we’ve seen committed on our televisions have infiltrated even the fictitious aspects of our minds. DeLillo uses the ideas of real tragedies and atrocities in the idea of a terrorist group kidnapping a represented person for ransom or political agenda, and he embodies the uncertain aspect of postmodernism by offering limited descriptions of the characters, limited insight into their thoughts (in lieu of their muddled dialogue), and, especially, limited resolution to the plot of the book. The reader is left feeling uncertain and discontent, yet with a feeling that some kind of moral or knowledge has been gained from the whole experience—just like a real life tragedy.
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