Naslov
The Notions/Issues of History in Postmodern Literature: Kurt Vonnegut

Autori
Gruić Grmuša, Lovorka

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Space and Time in Language and Literature

Urednik/ci
Brala Vukanović, Maja ; Gruić Grmuša, Lovorka

Izdavač
Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Grad
Newcastle upon Tyne

Godina
2009

Raspon stranica
129-143

ISBN
978-1-4438-0567-4

Ključne riječi
Kurt Vonnegut ; history ; postmodernism

Sažetak
This paper offers a postmodern approach to history as viewed through the perspective of the post-WWII literary generation. Kurt Vonnegut is one of the postmodern authors who claim that most of history is totalitarian ; for when the historiographer assimilates all particular moments into the time of universal history, it is assumed that he or she outlines the plot analogous to nature (Young 47). This integration ignores the Other - marginal groups and individuals that have experienced the world differently. That is why Vonnegut and other postmodernists see western domination to forge linear, causal chains of time as harmful, and prone to explode time's continuity into small, unmemorable fragments of 'now'. The same pattern is palpable in other aspects of Vonnegut's texts. Every time one of the characters credits a vision of truth, the vision explodes and the 'truth' turns useless or wrong (Strehle 62). It seems that Vonnegut argues that the past - having shaped a dangerous present - can only be known imaginatively and the most reliable explorer of the past is the one best able to integrate facts into a living imagined reality - not the historian but the historically informed artist (as himself).

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Interdisciplinarne humanističke znanosti, Književnost

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