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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page essay on Joyce Carol Oates' short story "How I Contemplated the World From the Detroit House of Corrections and Began My Life Over Again," which offers a distinctly postmodern view of the life of an unnamed sixteen-year-old female protagonist. Examination of this narrative demonstrates that it is postmodernism that makes the writing of this story possible, as Oates foregoes the narrative conventions of the past in order to present a structure and perspective that conveys a degree psychological complexity that would otherwise not be possible. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khoatesp.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
offers a distinctly postmodern view of the life of an unnamed sixteen-year-old female protagonist. Examination of this narrative demonstrates that it is postmodernism that makes the writing of this story
possible, as Oates foregoes the narrative conventions of the past in order to present a structure and perspective that conveys a degree psychological complexity that would otherwise not be possible.
Selden, Widdowson and Brooker point out that there is considerable debate over precisely what constitutes "postmodernism." Essentially, the modernist viewpoint evolved from Enlightenment philosophy and the idea that human
rationality is capable of unraveling and making sense of the world. However, the "grand narratives of social and intellectual progress initiated by the Enlightenment" have been discredited by postmodernism (Selden,
Widdowson and Brooker 200). Precisely how this has transpired largely depends on the context in which postmodernism is being discussed. In regards to literature, postmodernism encompasses the shock that individuals
experience when faced with the failure of modernity, that is, when people come face-to-face with the "unimaginable" (Selden, Widdowson and Brooker 202). This experience results in the "loss of fixed
points of reference," as "Neither the world not the self any longer possess unity, coherence (or) meaning" (Selden, Widdowson and Brooker 202). Basically, this is what happens to Oates adolescent
unnamed narrator in this short story. First of all, Oates employs a postmodernist structure in order to convey this girls story, as the narrative begins with an italicized note
that explains that the story consists of "Notes for an essay for an English class at Baldwin Country Day School..." (Oates 267). The structure follows the structure of notes with
category headings and outline form. As this suggests, this destroys all semblance of chronological order or any semblance of conventional narrative techniques, as the girls story comes across in bits
...