When the Pride Escapes?

In 1958, one of the most successful African novels of all times was published. “Things fall apart” was written by Chinua Achebe a Nigerian Novelist who had experienced first-handed the overwhelming tenacity that the white missionaries and their religion had. 

Chinua Achebe wrote this novel based in what he experienced as one of the many African natives who saw the terminal arrival of the white man and their Christianism. His parents themselves were Africans natives converted to Christianism, they abandoned their old religion, their old Gods in order to join the white man’s religion. 

 

"We have been sent by this great God to ask you to leave your wicked ways and false gods and turn to Him so that you may be saved when you die." -European Missioners introducing themselves.

 

This work reflects mostly how overwhelming and deadly was the arrival of the white European missioners. As Achebe stated himself, “I wanted the story to be true”. Hence, even though this is a non-fictional story, the story attempted to show things just as they happened.  

The story is divided into 25 chapters and two major parts. The first part fulfills the role of telling how was the life of a native African village, their ways of life, their religion, etc., before the arrival of the white men. The second part dealt primarily with this “inconvenient” arrival.

 

Through the entire story, we follow the manly-prideful-warrior figure of Okonkwo. He was a warrior a man known throughout the entire village and beyond, for he in his youth, as proven to be a champion at wrestling and henceforth considered a true warrior by the villagers. Early in the story, it is explained that his pride is actually born of hate, hate for his father, who was known to be a lazy, squandering, weakling, effeminate and disrespected man. That was how the people of the villages and Okonkwo thought of this man. 

For this reason, Okonkwo decides that he will not be like his father. He will be a man worthy of his ancestors and his respected earthly Gods. Furthermore, none of his sons will be like their grandfather, they must also be men and women worthy of the land they were born on.  

 

I found this to be quite ironical since in a way it was his father’s actions what made Okonkwo the man he was. Because if his father would have been a regular man of the village, Okonkwo would have probably been the same as the other kids, a lazy, weakling man living at the cost of his father. In this sense, Okonkwo’s hate for his father made him these prideful men. 

   

“To show affection was a sign of weakness, the only thing worth demonstrating was strength." –Okonkwo

 

The more I read about this character, the more I started to wonder what kind of man he really was. Was he a Psychopath that would allowed one of his closed one to be killed in cold blood because the village demanded so? Was he a Hero (Hemingway’s kind of hero) who would follow his code without delay? Was he a tender Tyrant who would strike his family down regularly because of the rage he kept inside? Or perhaps just a man of his land who would act as he must because that is how his world worked? The only thing I was sure was that he was a prideful man, as prideful as they come. Proud of his religion, of his people, of his village and of himself.

After the white men arrived at Okonkwo’s village, little by little they started converting the people of the village to Christianism. Not far after, most of the villagers had converted to this religion. Tossing aside all their previous beliefs about their Gods and traditions. 

“He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart."-Obierika. 

 

Okonkwo being as proud as he was, found himself overcame with rage born from the idea that his own people have become “weakling effeminates” that prefer to join the white man’s religion and abandon their native beliefs and ancestors. Even his first son had converted to Christianism. Due to all this, Okonkwo could not handle his world anymore. After some specific events, he came to the conclusion that the world in which he was living was not worthy anymore. The final Crisis was here, thus, he escaped, he killed himself.

 

Now, it is here, in the end when the story becomes blurry to me, Okonkwo was an adamant-steel-prideful man. That is how he is shown throughout the entire story, a man who would not back down or escape from anything. But in the end… he commits suicide? 

After reading a few analyses, it became evident to me that what the author intended to demonstrate was that even the most prideful of men would chose to take his life provided the situation (his religion been desecrated, and the shame of his people). However, Okonkwo was likely to be the proudest man in the entire village, and the simple fact of killing himself would show a sign of cowardice, and a man as he would have never taken a run for. He was not a good father, he was not a good husband maybe he was not even a good neighbor, but a coward? That idea does not fit. Moreover, at some point it is mention in the novel that those who dare to kill themselves are a shame for the land, the Gods and the ancestors. And one of the things that kept Okonkwo alive, beside his rage, was his beliefs. 

"…but the law of the land must be obeyed."-Okonkwo.

 

He was shown as a man that never, for any possible reason, would escape a fight. And that is what suicide is, an escape from a problem you are not strong enough to deal with. So how is it possible that a man as prideful and vainglorious as he would have committed such atrocity against his Gods, beliefs and ancestors? 

This is what troubles me; because as I went through the story, I notice that Okonkwo would have never walked away from anything, he would always prefer to fight or to die fighting. As a proof of this, in the final meeting, Okonkwo was eager that his village might come to decide about going to Holy War against the white men because of what they had previously done. However, he was truly excited because it would not matter the decision that his clan would make, He was going to war regardless of his clan effeminate opinion. Hence, the fact of Okonkwo killing himself works metaphorically since it shows how the shame and weakness of his entire village and the tenacity of the white men and their “disrespectful religion” finally overcame even pride itself. 

Now I ask you… Can Pride escape a man?                     

Bibliography:

•  Alan R Friesen., (2006). “Okonkwo’s Suicide as an Affirmative Act: Do Things Really Fall Apart?” University of Regina.
• Alam F., (2010). “Reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart Ecocritically”. University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
• Michael Kirkpatrick. (2015, August 13th). “Chinua Achebe Interview” Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqeWAVlps0U

• PBS NewsHour. (2015, August 13th). “Achebe Discusses Africa 50 Years After 'Things Fall Apart'”. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHF_w0gkyiI

Eugene O’Neill’s

Long Day Journey into Night

Long day’s Journey into Night is Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play regarded as his finest work and awarded with the Pullitzer Prize in 1957. It is the story of the Tyrone family; James Sr. (who we recognise as “Tyrone” in the play) a former actor; Mary, his wife, suffering from a morphine addiction ever since the birth of their youngest son, Edmund; and Jamie, the eldest. But my main purpose in writing this is not to make a summary for the ones who did not read it, but to discuss certain aspects that characterize modernist works inside O’Neill’s play.

Mary Tyrone (Katharine Hepburn) and James Tyrone Sr.
 (Ralph Richardson) in  Sidney Lumet's 1962 film adaptation.

First of all: The gnomon

Two of the Tyrone’s family members are ill; first we learn there is something not so right about Mary’s health from paying attention the first discussions between Mary and her husband about her weight, from the stage directions we realise that something is wrong with her hands which she tries to have occupied all the time, we are told that she is “too self-conscious” and constantly touches her hair because she is aware that she is being looked at.  We are given clues that “she is better than she was before” but we do not understand what has happened to her. The family tries to hide the fact that Mary is struggling with her addiction to drugs by not speaking of it, but as spectators, we can only wait to see what the male characters so afraid of in relation to this female character.

The same happens with Edmund’s health, he suffer from tuberculosis and again his brother and his father tries to hide this from Mary, who tries to believe that Edmund has “just a cold”, and we only find out by the end of the third act, that this is not true.

Crisis (yes, of course)

It seems obvious to mention this is a play in which the sense of crisis and constant turmoil are present. We can observe this not only in Mary and her son Edmund’s health problems which make the family’s daily situations more tense, since these issues cannot be properly addressed in fear it might hurt and let Mary suffer from another “nervous breakdown”.

The Tyrone sons, Edmund (Dean Stockwell) and Jamie
(Jason Robards Jr) in Lumet's 1962 film adaptation.

Apart from the alcoholism problems the male characters in this play have which has slowly destroy each of them, one of the aspects that may have deteriorated the Tyrone’s is how they resent on each other, and how this reflects on their discussions, it seems that in order to deal with themselves, “they spit their anger out at one another” (Gray, 2002). Edmund blames his father for his condition and her mother’s condition as well, since he has paid for the same cheap doctor year after year and is not willing to pay for a better treatment. Mary blames Tyrone for this same reason, for not giving her a house in which she felt comfortable; she blames her sons as well, Edmund for being born because it was since then that she started with her addiction to morphine, and her son Jamie for having spread the measles to her second son Eugene, who we discover had died long ago. Jamie at the same time, hates Edmund for having the talent that he never had and admits almost at the end of the play, in one of the most intense moments of the whole book, that he has mislead his brother on purpose because of the  jealousy he felt. Tyrone had sooner discover this and blames his son Jamie for not being a good role model for his younger brother. “Though the audience is witness to this play, the family's dilemma is that there is no single person to blame for everything, and so a solution cannot be rendered.” (Gray, 2002)

Because of all of this, we get the feeling this family is completely lost, they are constantly about to break, and what family wouldn't? When you have so many things going on, so many issues to unravel and not apparent solution to them...

Stagnation

MARY

With a strange, abrupt change to a detached, impersonal tone.

 But I suppose life has made him like that, and he can't help it. None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever. (Page 63)

It is in this fragment, in which we can clearly see the kind of philosophy this family follows, a certain fatalism that does not allow any of the characters to fight their demons, to change the way they are and therefore, their situation as a family. Mary cannot help but succumb to her addiction, Jamie cannot help being a jerk; Tyrone cannot help being thrifty because he grew up poor. It is here where we can see a never ending cycle, the characters themselves believing there is no possible change, now way out of the drama they are living in. Ironically, the only one who can escape this is Edmund who will be sent away to a sanatorium, it is consumption, the one thing who is stealing life from him that can save him from this family’s tragedy.

After having explained why different elements from modernism can be found in this marvellous play, I conclude this with my humble opinion. What I really liked about this play was that, as it moves from on scene to another; we get hints or clues of what is actually going on, you know some things are not right and you want to confirm whatever it is we started thinking it was, or maybe, we don’t, because deep down we know it’s not simple, we know we’re in for a tragedy. Or, as this quote from one review of the play points out: “Scene by scene the tragedy moves along with a remorseless beat that becomes hypnotic as though this were life lived on the brink of oblivion.” (Books Atkinson, 1956)

References

Bloom, H. (1987). Foreword. In E. O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night (pp. 1-12). London: Yale University Press: New Haven.

Books Atkinson. (1956). Long Day's Journey into Night. New York Times .

Bray, W. R., & Barton Palmer, R. (2013). Modern American Drama on screen. Cambridge.

Gray, J. (2002). Eungene O'Neill's Long Day Journey into Night. In J. Parini, American Writers Classics Volume 1 (pp. 108-124). Charles Scribner's Sons.

O'Neill, E. (1956). Long Day's Journey into Night. London: Yale University Press New Haven.

Crisis

Identity crisis

It is generally known that adolescents suffer a significant change in their transition to adulthood, their personalities and life change a lot, and in the case of the protagonists of this graphic novel this issue is relevant. Once adolescence takes places in one own’s life, crisis does as well and it is presumably because of this that many young people, like Enid and Becky in Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World (1997), react with certain attitudes and behaviors commonly noticed in teenagers in the point of becoming adults (Aramburo, 2011).  

Enid

She is aware about the crisis she and her friend are dealing with , but unlike Becky, Enid is prepared for the change. Although she does not tell Becky, this girl of glasses knows that she is going to be an adult, which has to do with different issues, such as leaving school, finding a job, going to university. She needs a change, she is not happy with herself, she hates her appearance and daily life, and she is waiting for a turnaround in her routine. A wish of changing that Becky could not understand but which Enid expresses clearly when she tells her friend “That is because you do not utterly loathe yourself” (Clowes, 1997, pág. 77)  Differently to her friend, Enid is not scared about future, she has left high school in the past and is ready to be an adult, however, her close relationship with Becky makes her think about how much can affect her decisions to her friend, to take into account that she wants to apply for a university, move on and work. Nonetheless, she does not tell Becky about her plans until the last minute.

Becky

A skinny blonde girl who does not carry out her crisis as well as her friend, she is scared about change, worried about her future without Enid, she believes that if Enid change all their friendship would have not the importance and meaning it used to. As she does not want to change, she feels she will be left behind, just like the past they shared together. Becky lives in the past and wants that everything stay like that.  She remembers every day at school and does not want that anything change, "I don't want to go anywhere or do anything... I just want it to be like it was in high school!" (Clowes, 1997, pág. 72)

Gatsby and Becky?

What can Gatsby and Becky have in common? Well, they do have a lot; both are caught in the past, both want to stay at a specific time in the past where they felt quite and comfortable. In the case of Gatsby, he wanted to recover Daisy´s love, a love which was alive just in a distant past, a past that he wanted to revive anyway. And it is clear to distinguish when he and Nick are having a crucial conversation: “You cannot repeat the past”, stated Nick, “Can’t repeat the past? … Why? of course you can!” were Gatsby’s words. (Fitzgerald, 1925, pág. 118).

On the other hand, Becky is a young girl who wants school days back, and like Jay, she lives as everything is equal to the times she remembers. Both characters are worried about a life without a person they considered relevant in their lives. In the case of Gatsby because Daisy was his only true love, and Becky finds in Enid everything she needs from a friend.

During the adolescence, teens used to feel identified with their pairs and not with people who demonstrate authority. (Aramburo, 2011) Therefore, Becky only wants to spend time with her friend since she felt comfortable with her, and expect nothing change between her and inside her own world, however, Enid is changing as the entire world is changing.

A reason for the issue that Becky feels safe with Enid can be that “The quality of the relationship that teenagers can establish with their group of friends is relevant. To the extent that individuals can identify with a group and can integrate into it will derive the corresponding benefits from the point of view of emotional support, assistance and social learning, and it is likely to be reflected in their self-esteem”. (Hendry, 2003, pág. 152) So that, Becky feels insecure without Enid friendship, she finds in their relationship the support she needs to face the life and the society. The same happens with Jay, in their adolescence, he felt secure with Daisy´s love, he believed he did not need anything else, just be with her. However, they cannot be caught in the past, they need to face real world, where they are just one person in it. Both suffered from a crisis of identity where they needed other person to tell them who they were, but they were more than a friend, more than a lover, they were people who need be recognized as that.

Moreover, this situation is common in our society, where groups of friends need the recognition of their pairs. So what can we do for avoiding this issue? Is this situation noticed by the society? It is necessary that more writers like Fitzgerald and Clowes create new stories to show the reality of a world unnoticed, to show the ghost world of thousands.  

Bibliography

Aramburo, N. U. (2011). Adolescencia y ritos de transicion. Una articulacion del psicoanalisis postfreudiano y lacaniano. Revista colombiana de Ciencias Sociales, 194.

Clowes, D. (1997). Ghost World. (pag. 72) (pag. 77). Washington: Fantagraphics.

Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). The great gatsby. En F. S. Fitzgerald, The great gatsby (pág. 118). United state: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Hendry, J. C. (2003). The nature of adolescence. En J. C. Hendry, The nature of adolescence (pág. 152). Madrid: Morata, S. L. .

About Mice and Guilt

Maus has certainly been a success since it was first published in the 80’, after all it was the first graphic novel to be awarded a Pulitzer prize, but right now I do not want to write about Spiegelman’s achievements, nor discuss the story, I want to focus in a very particular theme found in Maus: Guilt. I will be treating the different dimensions of guilt that I found in Maus as “kinds of guilt” since I feel it is something that transcends fiction and is therefore too complex to be treated as just one thing.

Survivor guilt:

The most striking feature of survivor guilt is its moral judgment of self-blame. It is directed to the survivor's undeserved survival in contrast to other's deaths. Fink, G. (2010).

In this case, it might be evident for some readers the sense of guilt that Vladek was feeling.

Probably, he felt guilty for having outlasted his son Richieu and Anja’s parents, but most importantly, Anja. As it is made evident throughout the novel, Vladek was not telling Art the story of how he lived during the holocaust, we could even go as far as to say that, for Vladek, the story he was telling was about Anja and the holocaust was mere background, consequently, her suicide must have been the most painful and devastating source of survivor guilt for Vladek.

Second-generation:

It could be confused with the Survival guilt previously mentioned, but in this case, we are talking not about the actual people who survived the holocaust but rather we are talking about their children. According to Berger, A. L. (1997), this sense of guilt that second-generation witnesses experience, can have diverse origins; for instance, they can feel guilty for not  fully understanding the suffering their parents endured, for not having experienced it themselves or even for the suffering itself, in a way that is as Berger mentions “quite undeservedly.”

Author’s guilt:

Another kind of guilt that really caught my attention while reading Maus, was that of the author’s. I am talking particularly about the second tale (A Survivor’s Tale) in which it is explored the guilt that Spiegelman felt after the great success of the first book.

I would say that in the image above, Art’s success is portrayed as being something almost rotten since it was built on the death and suffering of so many people.

In relation to the author it is also interesting that being a second-generation witness of the holocaust and write about it can bring in itself a great burden, according to Berger, A. L. (1997), Ellen Fine points out very cleverly that “if he dares to speak the name of the dead, the post-Holocaust writer must bear the burden of guilt for inventing memories that are not his own.” This kind of guilt actually sounded quite familiar to me, nowadays, young people in Chile usually have something to say about the dictatorship, but some feel uneasy when it comes to sharing their point of view because they have been constantly told that they are not entitled to have an opinion in the matter as they did not live during that period, people end up with an awful sense of guilt just for having something to say.

The guilt of a reader?

Finally, I think maybe we could even find guilt in the reading of the story, in the enjoyment of a tale that is about suffering, about how people were mistreated, tortured, and killed. Maybe, even the reader can recognise in him/herself a sense of guilt after acknowledging the enjoyment that such a reading produced.

Art Spiegelman talked during an interview about people who would tell him that they really enjoyed his books suddenly realising that such enjoyment could be regarded as something negative, he said that “there's something horrific about enjoying the fact that so many people died, and that's really a very serious issue and a central dilemma.” I certainly have mixed feelings about it, but I would to know what do you think, did you ever feel guilty about enjoying this novel or any other media about the holocaust?

Bibliography

Berger, A. L. (1997). Children of Job: American second-generation witnesses to the Holocaust. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Fink, G. (2010). Stress of war, conflict and disaster. Amsterdam: Academic Press.

Spiegelman, A. (2003). The Complete Maus. Penguin Books

The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Maus (Art Spiegelman). Retrieved August 13, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvg3gnvhku

Look back in anger

This work of John Osborne, released in 1956 represents a rupture of the British traditional theatre. We must situate in the 50s to understand why.

In the mid-1950s, Britain was in a period of transition. When the Second World War have finished, the country tried to rebuild its happiness and austerity. Thus, there was a general feeling of disenchantment across the nation and citizens looked back nostalgically to the 30s and 40s. However, during the following years relevant events occupied the British´s media and were a remember for people of how was their nation before the war. The young Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1952, The conquering of Everest by a British expedition headed by Edmund Hillary in 1953 and the running of the four-minute mile by Roger Bannister in 1954. (Reeves, 2005, pág. 3) On the one hand people wanted to forget all issues caused during the Second World War, but, on the other hand, they wanted to continue be the same people before it. They enjoyed national events and the classic theatre, which was a continue remembering of the Shakespearean age.

May be for Osborne this was the big reason to change the rules of theatre, where it was usual for people to see musicals, classical revivals and unreal stories on the stage. He decided to show to the audience a new kind of theatre, but a common story.

Kitchen Sink Drama

Osborne was the first who bring common aspects of real life to a stage with his work Look Back in Anger. What can be more common than a woman ironing at her house, or a couple making silly games to demonstrate their love and confidence, or a working class home as setting. The work that was concerned with working class and domestic issues becoming known as Kitchen Sink Drama. (Reeves, 2005, pág. 4) So that, John broke the traditional thought that established the classical theatre as the only way of doing theatre, he renew it completely.

Angry young men, Kitchen Sink Drama and Chilean Educational Movement today

       

Angry young men was a group of writers, both novelists and playwrights who focused their attention on the working classes, portraying the drabness, mediocrity and injustice in the lives of these people and directing their anger at the upper and middle class establishment. (Reeves, 2005, pág. 4) Kitchen Sink Drama was a new kind of theatre which left in the past the upper middle class as protagonists, and started to focus its attention on the real world, the common aspects of common people. (King, 2007)And the Chilean Educational Movement is an issue that has also paid important attention to the real situation of the nation, to the daily life of the working classes. Moreover, as the angry young men and the kitchen sink drama, Chilean Educational Movement, is the response to years and years of the same manipulation of reality. This movement is the action of braking rules and obstructions. It also shares with the angry young men their vision of the past, a past unchangeable before their interventions, a past of huge repudiation of what was happening, but a pacific way of showing their disapproval. Both nations, Britain and Chile needed a change at their specific times. In the case of British Nation, this change was carried out with the change in its theatre in the 50s, while in Chile this change is being carried out nowadays with the new generation of angry young students who expect to make a difference in our education.  

A cultural change is needed

It is necessary to mention that the change in British theater was needed because a cultural change was needed, people needed to forget about classism, they needed to start thinking about reality, about its new reality after war, and not trying to recover the past, a past full of ghost and classism. In the case of the nowadays Chilean state, a change in our culture is also needed, however, as Rojas Hernandez established, a cultural change is a slow process, it arises from individual and social interactions and it can be only accelerated  by protests and social movements that promote it. (Hernandez, 2012, pág. 74)So that, this new generation of students who want to make a change, who want to express their opinions, make critics about what they consider wrong, who want to show the nation ‘reality and who want to share with the entire world the classism that exist not only in Chile as a country, also in its education, they are our own Kitchen Sink Drama, they are our own angry young men. The Chilean students can make a change in Chilean history; Chilean angry young students look back in anger and represent all those voices who were silenced, all those voices who still want to say something. May be now is the moment of a change for our culture, may be it is a slow process, but we have already started. 

Can chilean students make a different in our culture? Can two totally different cultures have so many aspects in common to make a change?

Bibliography

Hernandez, J. R. (2012). Sociedad Bloqueada. Movimiento estudiantil, desigualdad y despertar de la sociedad chilena. En J. R. Hernandez, Sociedad Bloqueada. Movimiento estudiantil, desigualdad y despertar de la sociedad chilena (pág. 74). Santiago: Los leones.

King, K. (2007). Western Drama through the ages: a student reference guide. En K. King, Western Drama through the ages: a student reference guide (pág. 452). United States: Greenwood press.

Reeves, A. (2005). Look Back in Anger: A Resource Book. En A. Reeves, Look Back in Anger: A Resource Book. (pág. 3). Edinburgh: Lyceum Education Department.

PostWorld

Throughout this first course of English Literature we have been learning quite a lot about Modernism. However, since 1950, after the Second World War ended, uncertainty and relativity shaped collective thinking leading us to Postmodernism (Hicks, 2004: 20), which of course also influenced English Literature. One example of this is Daniel Clowes' Ghost World (1997), work in which we can not only find features of Postmodern Literature, but also of postmodern thinking specially in the two protagonists: Enid and Rebecca (Becky). Let's analyze...

Features of Postmodern Literature in Ghost World

Daniel Clowes

In light of the elements of Postmodern Literature described in Mbaye (2014: 205-210), some features we can appreciate in Ghost World are:

Genre mixture

Is Ghost World a novel or a comic? The most likely answer seems to be 'graphic novel', since we can find in it elements of both literary narrative, which contribute with the fluency and verisimilitude given by verbal language, and comic, that contributes with the dynamism and expressiveness of drawing.   

Metafiction

As metalanguage is the one used to explain language itself, metafiction is used by authors to explain fiction. Commonly, authors imply metafiction in their work to reflect on their own process of creation and how their experiences and personalities contribute or limit it. Noenetheless, in the particular case of Ghost World, metafiction may be used by Clowes as an attempt to guess how young adult readers (they main audience he targets) see his work. Concretely, there is a moment in the novel when Enid and Becky talk about the work of a drawer curiously called David Clowes.  

Pedophilia, sexual precocity and sickness, instances of
black humor in Ghost World.

Black humor

Black humor emerged as a way to internalize and reflect on social decay, issue which in Modernist Literature was often interpreting from the perspectives of pessimism and despair. Thus, we find moments thoughout the story in which the matter of humor that amuses Enid and Becky has to do with politically incorrect topics such as pedophilia, satanism, sickness, violence and sexual precocity.

Juxtaposition of parallel stories

Even though Enid and Becky are the main characters in Ghost World, theirs is not the only story developed in the graphic novel. Actually several parallel stories interweave with it, most of which are never concluded. Melorra's, Bob Skeetes', John Ellis', Norman's, the Satanists' are some examples.

Magical realism

A moment of magical realism in Ghost World

Faith in esotericism revived as a way to give depth to an existence that seems to be trivial, which was strengthened by the advent of the New Age movement. The credible and the incredible take place together with equal validity. In Ghost World, we can clearly appreciate this towards the end of the story, when Enid asks Bob Skeetes, a self-proclaimed astrologer, to predict her future so as to ensure herself that everything will be allright for her and Becky.

It is needed to clarify that the features described above are not the only ones involved in postmodern narratives and they are not exclusive of this movement either, as some of them are shared with prior and later tendencies. 

Features of postmodern thinking in Enid and Becky

Considering the attributes of postmodern characters described in Crews (1999: 21-29), we can identify in Enid and Becky the following:

Examples of Enid's style changes

Self-marginalization and individualism

Community is more powerful than just the individual, therefore, in it our distinctive identity is lost, that is why some of us are particularly concerned for differentiating ourselves from the rest, albeit this leads some people never define themselves. This is what affects Enid precisely and the reason behind her constant style changes. She is permanently tasting new styles so as to find the one that fully suits her personality. This is also the reason behind her fondness to look for new places to go to, a different fate, different motivations, different objectives and different experiences. Enid is almost desperate for individuality in such way that she turn her friendship with Becky into a deeply hermetic relationship that keeps them marginalized from their peers.

Allusion to pop culture

In Postmodernity there is a significant distinction between high culture and pop culture especially after 1980's. Because pop culture is comprised by all products and manifestations that are supposed to be assimilated by a massive group, it is in turn expected that young people, due to their limited cultural background, are easily impressed by pop culture, making it a key topic in their conversations, reflections and models, just like Enid and Becky, who are permanently contextualizing many of their ideas by referring to movies, books, albums, comics and TV shows specially oriented to their generation.  

A moment of nostalgia for Enid and Becky

Nostalgia

Enid and Becky do not attempt to reconstruct the past, neither to make up its consequencues. But they use memories and nostalgia to make current life senseful. A key moment in Ghost World occurs when they check some old photographies to remember their childhoods and recall how they befriended each other.

Uncertainty and devastation

Enid and Becky spend the summer in a loop. The new society have designed for them some ways to 'become happy', which do not necessarily help them to ensure about future. Enid and Becky could go college, get a job, get married, go on a trip, but none of this alternatives calm down their anxiety about future, a future always out of control.

Enid having taken the decision
to change to reach her dreams

Capitalism

Both Enid and Becky are forced to make decisions based on capitalist motives. Enid is going to enroll a program at college, whereas Becky does not and accepts a job at a dinner instead. For Becky, losing his best friend is devastating, because then her life will become empty, unless she has "something to do". While Enid sees in her oppotunity a chance to leave, forget their past and become "someone completely different" so as to be ready to start a life that makes her truly happy, which does not mean she is not aware of how the desire of 'a better life' forces us to change what we are like, to reshape our dreams and, above all, lose what we love.

Always -modern

Enid and Becky were part of a new generation that inherits an ancient world to redefine it. They found decay, fear, absurdity and hopelessness, but also love, humor, significance and fascination. Society and culture had stopped being classical, being modern and started being postmodern. In this precise moment, Enid and Becky must be being part of a redifinition of all what we see, what we believe, what we feel, whereas in the time coming, a new Enid and a new Becky will be roaming the city absorbing and manifesting the world they will inherit from us, with renewed tendencies, always "-moderns", always define by prefix before the -modern, in sum, probably called, well, [something]-modern.

References

Crews, B. (1999). Postmodernist Narrative: In Search of an Alternative. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 12(1), pp. 19-36.

Hicks, S. (2004). Explaining Postmodernism. Milwaukee: Scholargy.

Mbaye, D. (2014). Entender la posmodernidad literaria: Una hermenéutica desde la "segunda fila". Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política y Humanidades, vol. 16, no. 31, pp. 203-211.