INTERTEXTUALITY IN POSTMODERN NOVELLAS: THE DECONSTRUCTION OF TRADITIONAL PLOTS
Keywords:
Intertextuality, postmodernism, novella, deconstructionAbstract
This article investigates how intertextuality functions as a principal engine of deconstruction in postmodern novellas, reorganizing inherited plots into reflexive, multi-voiced architectures. Drawing on the theories of Kristeva, Barthes, Genette, Bakhtin, Hutcheon, Eco, and McHale, the study argues that postmodern novella writing treats canonical narratives not as stable templates to be adapted but as textual ecosystems to be sampled, reframed, and contested. Methodologically, the article synthesizes narratological modeling with close reading of emblematic postmodern short fiction and novella forms, tracking how quotation, pastiche, parody, palimpsest, and metafictional frames redistribute causality, agency, and closure. The results show that intertextuality shifts the novella’s center of gravity from linear plotting to dialogic patterning: the plot becomes a site of negotiations between prior texts and present voices, while readers are interpellated as co-authors who must decode signals across genres and traditions. The conclusion proposes that such intertextual design does not abolish plot but relocates it into a field of competing scripts whose tensions generate meaning, offering productive pathways for pedagogy, translation, and comparative study.
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