The Postmodern Analysis of Marry Me : A Romance in Terms of Form

Abstract

This article is a qualitative one and the researcher by depicting one novel of John Updike: Marry Me, published for the first time in 1976, attests that romances at present are not written to cultivate imagination but they are created in order to embellish reality with fantasy, to reconcile imagination with objective presentation of reality. This is done by the artist to attain the reality effect, an effect that ends and culminates in a moral lesson. Updike in day by day record of the life of the Americans in his novel tries to create an effect that is permanent. The objective of romance and realism differ. This is what makes Marry Me, a problematic case. The organizing principle of romance is not objective social reality but the use of literary devices. The presence of these opposing factors in one novel makes it an excellent example of postmodern novel. It is said that romance and realism often are juxtaposed and yet they are not separable. In other words, they overlap. So, it is hard to consider any border for them. Although Updike uses many realistic details, there are some scenes of fantasy and idealism where the elements of romance are eminent. Perchance, the novel has the three main elements of romance including love, adventure, and quest while Updike does not use them in a normal and habitual way. Although there are many admiring romance critics and thinkers, the present writer mostly employs the theories of Northrop Frye, Richard Chase, Pamela Regis, Diane Elam, Kimberly A. Freeman, Heidi Hansson, and Judie Newman whose approaches to romance and postmodern romance are apparently applicable to prove that Marry Me is a postmodern romance. This textual research focuses on discussing different theories on postmodernism and romance separately and casting a debate on postmodern romance elements illustrated by parody, pastiche, intertextuality, self-reflexivity, irony, and imitation; and applying them to Marry Me in order to claim that Marry Me is a postmodern romance.