CREDULITY TOWARD METANARRIVES: THE POSTMODERN JIX IN JULIAN BARNES'S "FLAUBERT'S PARROT" (Pages 35-46) by Dr. Joy Jacob in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Julian Barnes rose to the pinnacle of literary horizon with his publication of Flaubert’s Parrot in 1984 that at the same time parodied the postmodern literary genre and criticized the postmodern rejection of metanarratives. The novel poses and playfully elaborates on questions about traditional understanding of history and conventional concepts of truth, questions frequently posited by the post modernists. Flaubert’s Parrot, though a postmodern work emphasizes the existence of objective truth and necessity to recreate metanarraatives as the only guiding poles in human progress. The novel, though placed in the post modern ethos, it narrative strategy at once flouts and defies conventions and at the same time establishes the need for tradition and convention as anchorages to live in the post modern world. Barnes employs an amazing array of techniques, themes and forms along side with a fusion of genres to question the postmodernist incredulity toward Meta narratives. Thus Julian Barnes is a post postmodernist because of his personal resolution to envisage human existence as if the objective truth was all times accessible, as if ultimate meaning was within reach. The age of post postmodernism is depicted as an age of deep faith and devout belief in the perpetual presence of the Truth and grand narratives, allowing one to fill one’s life with narratives, instilling it with a sense of purpose. As a consequence, post-postmodernism was presented as the only mechanism to guide those who place their hands on their hearts and are willing to assert, I believe towards a meaningful future. Barnes’s novel is pervaded with a longing for the no longer available stable meaning because the lack of any firm foundation breeds disappointment, anxiety and frustration. Most importantly, it creates the need to embark on some sort of pursuit that would make sense of one’s place in the universe, help to understand one’s personal tragedy or defy the increasingly relativist and ethically hollow world. The novel makes a reality the famous Barnesian wisdom: “History may not be 56 percent true or 100 per cent true, but the only way to proceed from 55 to 56 is to believe that you can get to a hundred”. Keywords: pinnacle of literary, metanarratives, narrative strategy, post postmodernism, Truth and grand narratives, personal tragedy,