The novel is hard to categorize for it draws on many traditions such as the Bildungsroman, the historical novel or the essay as it is supposedly Daniel’s PhD dissertation and it springs backward and forward in time from the fifties to the sixties. Daniel’s narrative reshapes the past making central what had previously been marginalized by the dominant historical discourse. 1 Welcome to Hard Times (the western genre revisited) in 1960 and Big as Life (a science-fiction nov (.)ġIn The Book of Daniel, Doctorow’s third novel 1, published in 1971, the narrator is an orphan who tries through his narrative to rehabilitate his parents who are fictionalized re-creations of the Rosenbergs, renamed Isaacsons.This paper also presents a comparative attempt on the emergence of postmodernism with the political prediction in the American political system figures. In other words, it can be said that the past must be resolved in light of the present. Postmodernism emphasizes that past history must be studied in the perspective of the present. Postmodernism is not convinced and satisfied with the mere study of the bare facts of history because history is simply the record of the past events so it wants to discover a way to describe the historical facts for justifying it also. This theory has different opinions with the endless profiles of the time’s continuity that stop us to its fixed definition. Modernism denies following past events whereas postmodernists enjoy it. Postmodernism cannot be defined but it can be a way to analyze many aspects of modern time. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to highlight on the postmodernism in America with some references to modern critical canons and some of his major works. Postmodernism in America is a recent literary trend. As a historical novelist of Postmodern America, he was a writer of high reputation and wide recognition. Doctorow was a popular American novelist. Doctorow seeks to highlight the importance of listening to the fragmented voices of those who suffer the effects of trauma in order to develop new social and political perspectives that will guarantee a better future.Į. As a conclusion, it is contended that the novel’s concern with trauma and memory points to the author’s preoccupation with remembrance, which he seems to consider the best and only tool to build a better world. Finally, this paper concentrates on the status of Daniel’s memories of his traumatic past. The paper, then, explores the relationship between the protagonist’s traumatic condition and his violent and oppressive treatment of the three main female characters of the novel.
The analysis of Daniel’s narrative reveals that he suffers from many of the symptoms associated to PTSD and anhedonia, a psychological condition which frequently co-occurs with PTSD as a consequence of infantile psychic trauma. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel (1971) is unequivocally what has been termed a “trauma novel.” This paper examines the protagonist’s traumatic condition, concentrating on its causes and on the determining circumstances that contribute to aggravating it.
I will attempt to establish how these two traditionally conflicting modes coexist and interact in Ragtime.Į. This analysis will lead to an examination of the problematic collusion of the mostly white, male, patriarchal aesthetics of postmodernism and feminist politics in the novel. Thus, on the one hand, I will focus on issues of uncertainty, indeterminacy of meaning, plurality and decentering of subjectivity on the other hand, I will examine the novel’s attitude towards gender oppression, violence and objectification, its denunciation of hegemonic gender configurations and its voicing of certain feminist demands. I will explore Ragtime’s indebtedness to postmodern aesthetics and themes, but also its feminist elements. The purpose of this paper will be two-fold. This is certainly the case of Doctorow’s fourth and most successful novel, Ragtime. Yet, these novels have an eminently social and ethical scope that may be best perceived in their intellectual engagement and support of feminist concerns. Many critics of Doctorow have classified him as a postmodernist writer, acknowledging that a wide number of thematic and stylistic features of his early fiction emanate from the postmodern context in which he took his first steps as a writer.
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