Pulp Fiction: A Postmodernist film
Pulp Fiction is an American comedy crime film written and directed by critically acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino. The film came out in 1994 following the success of Reservoir Dogs by the same director. Pulp Fiction was widely praised for its unique narrative structure. The film consists of 7 major narrative sequences. There are multiple instances where the movie jumps backwards and forwards in timeline. The narration in the movie can be described as circular narrative as the ending and beginning when merged complete the timeline of the movie(1). This narrative structure is rather unconventional and reminds the audience at multiple instances that this is not real life and they are watching a movie. One of these instances include Mia (Uma Thurman) drawing a rectangle on screen while talking to Vincent (John Travolta) in car in front of Jack Rabbit Slim’s. The film includes multiple clues which link its narration style to Post Modernism. To understand this linkage, firstly Post Modernism should be described.
Modernism began in early 1700s with the rise of capitalism. This was start of an age of rational thinking. The major belief of this age was to believe only those things which they could see. The idea of modernism is, to quote father of Modern Philosophy Rene Descartes, ‘I think therefore I am’(2). This basically meant believing only those phenomenon those can be seen or proved by science. This new thinking lead to a shift from