Return To Realism In The Postmodern Era

Tom Wolfe has become a very conspicuous presence in contemporary American literature. With his innovative voice, experimental style and distinctive personality he has made plenty of enemies in the literary circle. Meanwhile, he has been vindicated by the reading public, who has turned him into one of the richest writers in America, an enduring literary presence who continues to outsell his peers, including those big names. In the postmodern era, postmodernists combine elements of meta-fiction, fantasy, modernism and other literary forms to question the possibility of representing the world whereas Tom Wolfe's theory is the antithesis of postmodernism. Arguing that literature is primarily representation, Tom Wolfe dares the public to return to realism, the social novel, which he argues as the best form to involve readers in the text. He defends realism and argues for the importance of research which he considers as an elementary part of novel writing. While lamenting the fact that writers since world war II have chosen to limit themselves to the never-never land of the fable or the claustrophobic isolation of minimalism, Wolfe himself has chosen to travel a different path, putting his theory of realism in practice. Bonfire of Vanities and A Man in Full have established Wolfe's literary stance as a social novelist of America.I Am Charlotte Simmons is the latest triumph of Tom Wolfe, the master social novelist, the spot-on chronicler of America. Drawing on extensive observation of campuses across the country, Wolfe depicts college students vividly by giving us a picture of the Dupont University. Charlotte Simmons, the lens of youth culture in Dupont, brings the readers to Dupont life as well as other colleges in contemporary America. Sex, sports, politics, religion, racism, love and alcohol which pervade on campus and characterize the youth in a general sense are well depicted by Tom Wolfe. On surface it seems to be a comic novel, but there is something serious beneath. Together with Wolfe's distinctive techniques of realism, the subject matter carries the social significance and provokes deep reflections on contemporary colleges, higher educational problem as well as the society and its universal culture, especially the youth culture.Focusing on the novel I Am Charlotte Simmons, this thesis tries to show the parallels between this social novel on academia and Tom Wolfe's literary views, particularly his attitude toward realism in the postmodern era. By making a textual analysis, this present research paper attempts to show in detail how Wolfe revivifies realism with his distinguished techniques in literary practice. Dressed in the white suit to mark himself as an outsider in the literary world of which he is also very much a part, Wolfe fights staunchly for the defense of realism in the postmodern era.