Narcissistic Pastiche: Towards Exploring the Concept of “Cras es noster” Through Nostalgic Postmodernism in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the concept of “cras es noster” through revealing John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars as a postmodern narcissistic pastiche. The study demonstrates how Green deviates postmodern literary traditions to offer viable solutions to contemporary writing impasses. Therefore, it examines the characters as embodiments of postmodern writers facing writing obstacles, especially the lack of avant-garde techniques which could be employed in fictional writings to revive the dwindling spirit of narrative potential needed to enhance the future of fiction as a whole. The study offers an in-depth analysis of the novel as a postmodern pastiche of Renaissance’s canonical penchant fascination with literary innovation. In this regard, it polarizes the Latin concept “cras es noster” within a postmodern context for the sake of departing into ingenious writing forms. These forms unconventionally reflect the authorial nostalgic hope to reinforce the sense of creativity in postmodern literature inspired by the past grand works, especially the Shakespearean grand style. The authorial propensity for establishing such aesthetic form is accomplished by narcissistic narrative perspective, which implicitly refers to the presence of the authorial voice in the plot. The study’s methodology is a qualitative textual-contextual interpretation of the selected novel’s postmodern themes and techniques. Thus, there are two main findings of the study. First, it explores Green’s The Fault in Our Stars as a postmodern pastiche of Shakespeare’s grand style. Second, it unravels the concept of “cras es noster” as being present in the novel via its narcissistic emphasis on writing great works to reinforce the future of fictional writings.