Postmodernism Essay, HELP! (1 Viewer)

[shady*]

The other day my teacher gave us an essay from the 2006 HSC Post Modernism paper, and told us to do it over the next week.

"Post Modernism locates us in places of uncertainty and possibility"
-Evaluate the extent to which this statement is true in French Lieutenant's Woman, and the TWO texts you ised in your Assessment tasks.

The two texts i chose were Run Lola Run (Film) and Borges and I (Short Story).

I don't really know where to start. I know the texts fairly well (especially my chosen texts), and have analysed the PM techniques/values within them several times, however i'm completely lost by this statement.

Uncertainty and Possibility? What techniques/values does this refer to?

I think i may understand it, but at a very limited and vague level. I'm sure i could list off some possibly connections between Uncertainty and PM techniques / values such as Fluidity of Identity, etc. However, there must be more than that.

Please Help!

(I must sound like an idiot, not being able to grasp this.)

Thanks in advance.

 

[wce06]

I did this question in last year's HSC, so might be able be able to help out! (though of course I had different texts to you...)

First of all, I think it's important to simply think about postmodernism as (I know this is simple - but it's essentially the answer) a reaction to modernism. Where modernism found certainty in the role of the author, the boundaries of textual form and style etc, postmodernism makes these uncertain. Think of Barthes in 'The Death of the Author'; he places (or 'locates') the author in the uncertain world of true authenticity; think of Baudrillard and his ideas about simulation of reality - basically postmodernism questions and challenges the certainties of modernism and explores possibilites allowed to us (and to texts) once these certainties (or boundaries) are pushed.

So from that, I looked at what it was in my texts that created 'uncertainty' - based on the paradigms and conventions of modernism. I talked about the idea of Reality from the postmodern perspective (and how this created uncertainty and possibility from a modernist perspective); the challenging of textual form and style that's found in postmodern texts (again how these aspects show 'uncertainty' against the regularity of modernism); and the Author figure.

The key to the question, I think, is the basis to the whole course and the whole concept of postmodernism: simply that postmodern ideas challenge those of modernism - where modernist architecture, literature, film etc define boundaries, postmodernism breaks these, and thus locates us in uncertainty based on our previous assumption of modernism being reality.

Hope this helps, feel free to PM

 

[mottowa]

i need help finding a related text.

What's this "Borges and I" about?
Who's it by???