Characterization in Postmodern Novel: Analysis of John Fowles' Mantissa in the Context of Postmodern Character

• Main Author: Mürüvvet Mira PINAR DOLAYKAYA
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Ankara University 2017-12-01
• Series: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi
• Subjects: Postmodernism; Postmodern Novel; Postmodern Character; John Fowles; Mantissa
• Online Access: http://dtcfdergisi.ankara.edu.tr/index.php/dtcf/article/view/2069

The concept of character is quite a problematic term in postmodern ction since postmodern texts overtly subvert and transgress the conventions of characterization in the novels of previous ages. In relation to the paradoxical and ambiguous nature of postmodernism, character undergoes a radical transformation in postmodern ction, and it cannot be pinned down with regards to the conventions of characterization. The character in postmodern ction becomes a site where the ontological concerns of postmodernism that the text rests upon are reverberated. Thus, postmodern problematization of such contentious concepts as self, identity, essence, history writing, ction, and fact is carried out and presented through postmodern characterization in the novel genre. Deprived of characters in the conventional sense, postmodern ction can thus be claimed to establish its own conventions of characterization. Hence, this paper analyses John Fowles' Mantissa (1982) so as to discuss how postmodern ction utilizes characterization to reverberate certain issues problematized in postmodern context and hence puts forth its own character conventions.