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Postmodernism’s main characteristic is that it is anti-essential and against
fixed ideas
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It has been criticized on the grounds that it is apolitical and
that it is too dangerous to reject history because that implies that it supports the idea
that historical facts like the Holocaust never occurred
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This is because history is His Story- the dominant’s who has written down and
spread on his own interpretation of events
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Hence,
postmodernism believes instead in multiple realities none more valid than the other
and is concerned with marginalized identities to which it gives voice
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For example, in “A history of the
world in 10 ½ chapters” in the first chapter “The stowaway” Julian Barnes gives a
voice to a woodworm which narrates its own version of the story of “The arc of
Noah”
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The story comes from the Bible, another Grand narrative with absolute and
fixed ideas
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However even though it claims that during its time
there the amount of wood it ate was inadequate to harm the arc, it opens holes in the
story itself by giving a different version of it- not necessarily a valid one since it also
undermines itself at the same time
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In presenting him as such the Bible
sets an example and a symbol which future generations ought to look up to
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In other cases he was “nearly on the edge”
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The woodworm’s account of events is that many species died but it recalls rumors
saying that their deaths were not accidental; “we begun to discern a pattern” meaning
that all animals not considered pure were eliminated
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Of course it is possible that Noah wasn’t as
virtuous as he is depicted in the Bible and that not all species survived but these are
things that most people do not question or doubt because they are taken for granted
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However who uses it and who abuses it depends on the readers
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Language therefore is
used to suit the interpreter
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Worms are spineless creatures- therefore they
have no guts and can’t speak up for themselves
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For example “I am
reporting what the birds said”, “There were the usual… rumors” make its story even
less credible
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In addition, worms crawl on the ground and they are
associated with deceit and treachery
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Last but not least, the title of the book itself shows its intention
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” History is not History but A history, meaning that it is a
version of events whose purpose is to undermine the History as being finite and
teleological
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The chapters
themselves do not follow a linear form, instead they are fragmented hence challenge
linearity- a characteristic of History
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Winterson
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Two marginal voices therefore de-mythologize the
Napoleonic Wars through their stories
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He also
implies that the Emperor had a complex about his height since “no one over five foot
two waited” on him
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In addition he stresses the fact that he was a
Corsican
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The reason is because Villanelle wears her “name as a
disguise” being a Venetian with a French name
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Early in the novel Henri describes how History has depicted the Napoleonic
Wars; “…soldiers become numbers… battles become diagrams… intellectuals
become a threat”
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For example “Two thousand men were drowned today” because Napoleon
insisted they did their training during heavy rain
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Repulsive
images of people eating their own body members, “mad with hunger and cold”
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Moreover he explains that in order to survive one must not thing of “every man you
murdered… every child whose future you stole”
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“The Passion” is not linear but gives different fragments of the story
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For example the cook from

Henri’s story turns out to be Villanelle’s husband
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The most-quoted phrase from this book is “I’m telling you stories
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”
As opposed to History that tells us an Absolute Truth and Reality, postmodernism
gives stories, multiple realities
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The narrators in this book therefore can either mean that they
have something important to say or that they are simply making things up
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The novel manages therefore to bring together history and
fiction by using and abusing language already used by History while at the same time
challenging and blurring their boundaries
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The two narrators are not ordinary
people
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On the other hand there is Villanelle who is a Venetian
girl with a French name and who has both male and female characteristics these being
webbed feet and a clean heart respectively
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All these therefore add up to the question; can the reader trust their
account of events? How credible is a woman who claims to have webbed feet and
walk on water? Again therefore the novel does not want to convince anyone of
holding an absolute truth but that it has a reality which is no less valid than all the
others
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Both are metafictional as well since they are self-aware and undermine their
own credibility “I’m telling you stories/ I am reporting”
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Postmodernism takes that language and uses and abuses it in order to prove that
History did the same thing first
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