Postmodern Literature Essay

The Garden of Forking Paths, by taking the form of a signed statement do by the main character of the story, Dr. Yu Tsun, has a specific instance that reverts back to the past which is the technique of flashback in postmodern literature. That precise instance is when Dr. Tsun reflects on his considerable ancestor, Tsui Pen, and recalls the liveness of the man. More importantly, the story itself is already a flashback by virtue of its form, a signed statement, which implies that reading the signed statement of Dr. Tsun is already a stylus of flashing back to his life before his death. Apparently, the flashback scene where Dr. Tsun recalls his memory of his great ancestor in addition indicates a flashback within the main flashback, which all the more signifies the postmodern character of the short story. Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart is also a literary work with a postmodern characteristic. This can be observed from the stylus in which Achebe preferred not to romanticize the story of the Nigerians by portraying the history of the Ibo tribe as flourishing while ending when the colonizers came, and is contrasted by the felo-de-se of the storys main character, Okokwo. In sum, the downfall of the Ibo tribe has also been brought about by the self-destruction of the societys hero aside from the harms make by the invading colonizers.Scott Momadays The Way to Rainy Mountain is also an example of postmodern literature because readers can hardly identify whether it is the motive who is narrating his life experiences or the characters in the story who are revealing their journeys in the so-called Rainy Mountain. Thus, readers may tend to interpret Momadays work as a combination of the stories of his life and his people, or readers may tend to interpret the same work as the story of the characters from the eyes of the author or the story of the author from the eyes of the characters. Lastly, both Primo Levis Two Flags and Survival in Auschwitz indicate the blurr ing of the character and the elements of the story. For instance, the character in Two Flags mentions an umpire in a soccer game when in fact there is no umpire in a soccer game but a referee. Quite oddly, Levi also reveals how the main character in the story died upon seeing the two flags of the nations he loved and hated respectively swaying side-by-side. On the other hand, Survival in Auschwitz has a climax in the opening parts of the story which tells us that the story departs from the conventional placement of the climax in stories. These elements are just some of the notable examples as to why both Two Flags and Survival in Auschwitz are also postmodern works in literature.Works CitedAchebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Anchor, 1994.Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York Touchstone, 1996.Levi, Primo. Two Flags. The Longman Anthology of World Literature. Ed. David Damorsch. Vol. F. New York Pearson, 2004. 406-08.Momaday, N. Scott. The Way to Rainy Mountain. New Mexico Univ ersity of New Mexico Press, 1976.