Word : a post-postmodern redemption of the meaning and the word

Abstract

In this thesis, I wish to draw a theoretical frame-work that establishes this visceral characteristic of Post-Postmodern literature. In the literature that has come to be defined as Post-Postmodernism (more so contemporary literature), there is a sense of reclaiming the meaning of the modern word, much like embedded meaning in the adamic word. This contemporary literature is shaping a language that fills in what Althusser calls the arbitrary link between the word and the meaning. Consciously or unconsciously, there has been an attempt to unfold the word in its own meaning and to form the word through the meaning, therefore diminishing any scope of ambiguity or disconnect. I wish to map this transition of the word from being logocentric in Derridean terms to being more visceral and material post the Postmodern age. To form the basis of this argument, I have chosen two contemporary novels: Ian McEwan’s Atonement, focusing more on Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being.