A Search for Harmony in Jennifer Egan’s Novel A Visit from the Goon Squad: A Post-postmodern Approach

المؤلف

MA Scholar in English Literature Helwan University

المستخلص

This paper aims to examine Post-postmodernism as a literary trend that emerges by the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. The paper makes a general survey on the different contributions in defining and naming the new trend following Postmodernism. It also highlights the impact of its preceding movements: Modernism and Postmodernism on Post-postmodernism as well as displaying its distinguishing features. While Postmodernism concentrated on the relativity of everything including the previously established truth, ethics and morality, Post-postmodernism is characterized by the revival of such concepts as truth, sincerity, and subjectivity. These concerns will be depicted in Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010). Egan uses diverse narrative techniques that proves the novel to belong to a new trend after Postmodernism. The novel echoes Michael Bakhtin’s concept of Polyphony through the presentation of multiple voices in the narrative. She also uses analepses and prolepses in the narrative of the novel. The use of these techniques contributes to presenting the novel in a non-linear, multi-layered narrative. the multi-layered narrative is further reflected through the use of the PowerPoint format that, along with the multi-voices and non-linearity of the events enable for the fragmentation of the narrative. However, that fragmentation, which is a Postmodern feature, is defied by the characters’ search for harmony and authenticity through the representation of the unity that connects all characters in a puzzle-like way of structural relationship web.

الكلمات الرئيسية

الموضوعات الرئيسية

ملفات

شارك

إرسال الاستشهاد إلى

الإحصائيات