Major Themes Of Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a movement that was started in the late-20th-century that essentially focuses on the deconstruction and the undermining of institutions that possesses a tradition and an established reputation. Derrida’s deconstruction is interested in finding the hidden meanings of a text, or representations of any kind, which the author may have not intended it to have (Thompson 2004, p. 10). Such examples of which institutions that are the target of the postmodernist movement are the arts, literature and history—which consists as one of major themes of the postmodernist movement. Hence, the focal point of this essay will be the examination of the take of postmodernism on the subject of history, and its techniques, along with a close correlation

This is relevant in how historians pen history, through the usage of interpretations of records. As Hutcheon states, the historical facts are a product of the interpretations of archival records and meanings that are given to them and how different perspectives will glean different meanings from the same events (2002, p. 54). This is further supported by Thompson as he explains that historians construct an account of historical representations that would be relatively convincing out of the records that are fragmented (2004, p. 29; Hutcheon 2002, p. 55; Evans 2002, p.2). It is the role of a teller—in this case, a historian—to give a particular meaning through gleaning a truth through the facts, as those facts are not able to present themselves in either form of narratives (Hutcheon 2002, p. 56). With interpretations and piecing together historical evidences to form meaning, this suggests that there is a certain sort of fictionalisation that goes into the method of how history is created and the ease of its readability raises the issue that historians would write history in a causal and linear fashion, almost so that it would read like a narrative with the implications that one thing would lead to another (Currie 1998, p. 79). As proclaimed by Alan Munslow: “The past is not discovered or found. It is created and represented by historians as a text.” (Evans 2002, p. 1). Combined this factor and the flaw of human beings’ inability to remain objective, this jeopardises the perception that history is a text that is free of biasness and that is ultimately neutral. This flaw is further supported by Greenblatt as he argues that the interpretations of historical representations can never be neutral or disinterred (1989 cited in Currie 1998, p. 88). It can also be