Borges Labyrinths: Postmodernist Anti-Narrative Experiments

Abstract

The painful experiences of the two world wars have had a profound impact on the development of human history. During this period, literary works often sought to revisit the ultimate meaning of life and provide new interpretations of the legitimacy of human existence.
Lyotard, in the preface to The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, states that modern refers to those cultural phenomena that
prove their legitimacy through grand narratives. These narratives often rely on scientific theories like dialectical materialism, hermeneutics,
and theories of universal liberation. In these grand narratives, human development is always aimed at a rationally designed ethical, political,
and cosmic harmony. Postmodernism, according to Lyotard, is a skeptical attitude toward all of this (Lyotard, 28). Postmodernist theorists
and artists have deliberately and thoughtfully deconstructed basic principles of traditional humanism, such as values, order, meaning, identity,
and linear relationships. This deconstruction forms one of the core features of postmodernist literature: the rejection of fixed centers and absolute truths, and the emphasis on decentralization, fragmentation, and multiplicity.