Delillo's Postmodernism: A Study Of Representations Of Postmodernity In Selected Novels Of Don Delillo

Postmodernism is always hard to define and debates have been extensive concerning this term. This dissertation addresses the issues of postmodernism and the representations of postmodernity in certain of Don DeLillo's works - specifically, the novels Americana, White Noise, Mao II and Cosmopolis. By examining postmodernism from the perspectives of its history, its rise, its relations with and differences from modernism, this survey will endeavour to focus on the postmodernity advanced by the most famous postmodern theorists, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard and Fredric Jameson, the characteristics of postmodern fiction and the representations of postmodernity in DeLillo's works.This study will be broken down into five distinct sections. The introductory section deals with postmodernism, the theory; the second with the characteristics of postmodern fiction and the following two chapters respectively observe representations of image and— the media as one aspect of postmodernity in DeLillo's novels and representations of challenge to authority in the domestic themes as another. The last chapter is the conclusion part. This study will attempt to indicate DeLillo's employment of certain postmodern themes and an attitude toward both postmodernism, the theory and its representations in DeLillo's works, both understood against their socio-historical background. DeLillo employs postmodern techniques to depict postmodern society in a more vivid way and in doing this, he touches upon the social exhaustion and anxiety in an age which is characterized by extreme technological development and mass consumption.