Postmodern

Question 1

Time Period

Answer 1

• Emerged in the late 20th century
• Continues into 21st century

Question 2

Style and Structure

Answer 2

• Embraces fragmentation pastiche: imitate other writers and fragmented narrators.
• Blending of genres
• Is non linear and narratives often play with conventions and subvert traditional expectations.
• Often experimental, incorporating multiple perspectives, unreliable narrators and metafictional elements
• Storytelling may play with the boundaries between fiction and reality and the narrative might be self-reflective or self-aware.

Question 3

Setting

Answer 3

• Reflects contemporary or dystopian worlds, sometimes exploring themes of urban decay, corruption and moral ambiguity.
• May be less stable and more reflective of modern anxieties.
• Often set in large, urban cities.

Question 4

Detectives

Answer 4

• Frequently features antihereos flawed charecters or unconventional detectives who may be more cynical or morally ambiguous (Jackson and Louise)

Question 5

Criminals

Answer 5

• Criminals have a range of motivations from psychological disorders and childhood traumas to sociopolitical causes
• Sympathetic villians reflecting more nuanced portrayls of criminal psychology. (Decker and Billy)
• They often exploit digital systems reflecting modern anxieties
  about technology and privacy.
• A focus on issues such as corruption and inquality reflects how social and political systems may contribute to criminal behaviour.

Question 6

Victims

Answer 6

• gives victims more psychological depth anf complexity.
• motivations and personal lives of victims begin to be explored making them more rounded charecters
• Their personal story often intertwines with the investigation.
• Potrays victims with greater agency and resilience.
• Often emphasizes the victim’s strength amd resourcefulness, rather than portraying them as objects of tragedy = reflects societal attitudes towards empowerment and justice.
• Some feature victims who become centeral figures in their own right, often driving the narrative themselves.

Question 7

Female Charecters

Answer 7

• subvert gender roles
• Not confined to the archetypal roles of damsel in distress or femme fatale but shown as ambiguious, flawed and deeply human.
• Moral ambiguity engage in criminal activities, pursue justice through unconventional means. exhibit both heroic and villainous traits reflecting a more nuanced understanding of human nature.
• Occupy roles trad reserved for men, such as hardened detectives or cunning criminals.
• Often depicted as confronting/resisting the patriarchal systems and oppression.

Question 9

Themes

Answer 9

• Nature of reality, identity and media saturation,
• A focus of deconstructing the genre itself and challenging trad notions of truth and justice.
• Themes of inequality and corruption, reflecting the economic and social disparities of contemporary society

Question 10

Context

Answer 10

• Technology has transferred how crime is committed and investigated
• Incoorperates surveillance and cyberspace and reflecting its impact on society.
• Subgenre explores the role media plays in shaping perceptions of crime (press w Reggie and Joanna when Decker got out)
• Intertextuality and metafiction: ref to classic crime lit, parodies of trad detective tropes.
• Narrative might comment on the construction or convention of the genre.
• Explores the psychology of charecters and subverts trad genre expectation.
• Blend genres like sci fi, horror, lit fiction , creating hybrid forms that challenge trad boundaries

Question 11

Paul Auster : The City Of Glass

1. Use if ‘we’: Direct address to the reader makes it metafictional.
2. Victim fiven psychological depth
3. Use of concidence (wrong number dialed)
4. Setting is dystopic and theme of disillusionment
5. Ref to media reflects the impact of media on our understanding of crime
6. Blurred lines in terms of mortality

Answer 11

1. Atkinson creates a bond between the reader and charecter. Use of brackets + stream of consciousness to make them deel as if they are in their lives
2. Joannas childhood trauma explored and influence on her life
3. Concidence used in the novel
4. Setting of Edinbrugh
5. Links to Decker and Reggie. the muder + death repeated in the media
6. Jackson commits a crime, down a crime scene. Joanna murders and moral ambiguity.