Postmodernism after 1945

In 1945, the United States of America was engaged in the second Great War, World War II. Announced and heralded as the ‘War to End All Wars,’ it showcased humanity at some of its darkest hours. From the deaths of millions in concentration camps, to mass suicides in Demmin, Germany, the world had thought it had seen the worst. Then, in May, on the 6^th and 9^th, Japan saw two cities disappear off the face of the Earth almost entirely as splitting atoms and imploding hydrogen boasted power that was said to be only the will of god himself. People looked at how the world was after these days; it was the true face of humanity at its finest, darkest, most abominable hour. In a way, WWII was the world’s first postmodern war. Postmodernism in itself is a play on modernism, which showed the world in terms of good and evil, right and wrong, with no blurring of the lines. Revenge, coincidence, the anti-hero, all are tools of a good post-modernist piece. Essentially, to be postmodernist is to look at life through the eyes of one who has lived and truly can say they are alive, as opposed to the subtle innocence of modernism.