A POSTMODERN STUDY OF SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA BY AMIRI BARAKA
Keywords:
Amiri Baraka, Capitalism, LyotardAbstract
Like many other historical events, the attacks of September 11th, 2001 have been playing an important role in literature by fascinating plenty of literary figures. Since then, lots of novels, plays, and poems have been written revolving these attacks and their traumatic impacts on American people. Amiri Baraka whose writings are reputed due to his focus on racism and violence is no exception. He wrote Somebody Blew Up America as a reaction against these occurrences. This essay intends to analyze this poetic piece from a postmodern approach. To do so, the viewpoints of Lyotard as a postmodern critic are applied. It is found that Baraka has voiced his loss of faith in such metanarratives as unity, order, stability, and capitalism. This loss of belief is according to Lyotard, the main feature of postmodern era. Also, this poem includes some other postmodern techniques like dark humor, irony, and intertextuality
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