Edna O?Brien’s Night: A Novel of Postmodernity

Abstract

Abstract

na O?Brien seems to be preoccupied with everyday life in the late capitalist society, which is dominated by superficial pleasures and moral degradation. She depicts life style and culture of postmodernity in many of her novels, but she does so most extensively in her novel Night. Night is symptomatic of the postmodern condition, a condition in which consumer, cynical culture has made human life meaningless. It is devoid of any attachments, values and relations. Life in such a world consists of a series of debaucheries, and that is the case with Mary Hooligan too, the protagonist in Night. Her lonely existence and her habit of killing time in inaction and in having reveries reflects her postmodern condition. The narrative focuses on revealing Mary’s thoughts which most often revolve around the relationships she has had with a variety of men. Her relationships with her various paramours do not show any emotional attachment, they are purely physical on both sides. There is no feeling of guilt involved in such shallow and temporary relationships because every emotion is meaningless in the postmodern world, as Mary once says, ?I will laugh or I will cry. There is little difference? (N 46).