Aspects of Postmodernism in "Happy Endings" and "Videotape"
According to Neil Bessner (Bessner), postmodernism is a "slippery term to define" (15). If we look at the literal meaning of the word in a regular dictionary, we may encounter something like "a style and movement in art [
] in the late 20th century that reacts against modern styles, for example by mixing features form traditional and modern styles" . In fact, it has extended many of the fundamental techniques and assumptions of modern literature. A lot of aspects and characteristics of this relatively new current are well exposed in short stories such as "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood (Atwood) and "Videotape" by Don Delillo (Delillo). In this essay, we will first look at some basic elements of postmodernism and then we will closely examine the ways each of those two short stories exemplifies this type of fiction. Let us start with the examination of some features of postmodernism.
To begin with, Bessner provides......
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Approximate Word Count: 1530
Approximate Pages: 6 (260 words per double-spaced page) |