The Conversation of Ideas: American Myths in Postmodern Literature

Postmodernism;conservation of ideas;metanarrative;twentieth century;American literature;College of Arts and Sciences: English Language and Literature

White, Jonathan AaronFlint ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Postmodernism;    conservation of ideas;    metanarrative;    twentieth century;    American literature;    College of Arts and Sciences: English Language and Literature;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/117764/WhiteJA.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This thesis exploes some of the myths that have joined together to form the American metanarrative since the beginning of the Anglo-American republic. Using a collection of novels, I will be exploring three of these myths: The Self- Made Man; Manifest Destiny; and American Righteousness. In their Postmodern forms, these myths may have become disillusioned, turned upside-down or played for ironic effect, but through the dialectic, they are still a part of America’s collective consciousness through the Conservation of Ideas. And as a cohesive American mythology has begun to reveal itself, the existence and form of a metanarrative can be discerned.