Postmodernism and notions of national difference: A comparison of postmodern fiction in Britain and America

This dissertation examines the critical construction of postmodern fiction in America and Britain, raising the question of whether this construction has sufficiently accounted for national difference. A universalizing turn in postmodern criticism casts postmodernism as a general tendency of Western culture. The evidence presented in this study suggests, however, that national differences are more persistent and powerful than usually allowed for by theories of the postmodern condition which claim a general collapse of traditional cultural orders. Therefore, current meta-national conceptions of postmodernism need serious reconsideration to take national cultures into account.;The importance of national factors in postmodernism's construction and reception is examined. The cultural climate of the US originating the construction of postmodernism, and its resultant "Americanness" is foregrounded, and the role of national cultural and historical factors in relation to the position of British fiction is also explored. After a review of the postmodern scene and the designation of exemplars, American and English novels are compared. The comparability of the novels as postmodern texts highlights their distinct national orientations and traditional patterns.;Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Graham Swift's Waterland display divergent patterns that conform to as well as confirm traditional distinctions, including those of British and American detective fiction, American romance and English realism. The novels also sustain customary assumptions about divergent national perspectives. This is demonstrated in the contrast between the overall orientation of The Crying of Lot 49 and Waterland captured in the oppositions of mystery and history, and of discovery and recovery.;Donald Barthelme's The Dead Father and Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor feature attitudes to the world that correspond to characteristic national differences: American presentmindedness as distinguished from a past-oriented English view. In The Dead Father, the past is an impediment to the future, while Hawksmoor embraces a past-present continuity. Furthermore, disparate approaches to language also reflect national influences: Barthelme sees language as something to be (re)made; whereas Ackroyd's ideas operate within, and accept, the established givens of language.