Social Class Representation within Postmodern Novels

Rushikesh Sanjay Sanap

Keywords: Social Class, Postmodernism, Capitalism, Globalization, Identity, Representation etc.

Abstract: Postmodern novels dismantle traditional ideas about social class and hierarchy through fragmented narratives, irony, metafiction, and cultural deconstruction. Rather than presenting class as a rigid economic category defined by wealth or occupation, postmodern authors reinterpret it as a dynamic and unstable construct influenced by ideology, globalization, technology, and the politics of representation. The fluidity of class in postmodern fiction reflects the dissolution of grand narratives that once sustained social hierarchies. Writers such as Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Arundhati Roy interrogate class boundaries by situating their characters within shifting global networks of capital, media, and cultural production. Through postmodern techniques--such as intertextuality, parody, non-linear structure, and unreliable narration--these authors challenge conventional depictions of economic disparity and privilege. This paper examines how these narratives foreground the interplay between social class, race, gender, and globalization, showing that identity and status are increasingly mediated through consumer culture and symbolic capital rather than traditional economic systems. In DeLillo's White Noise, for instance, middle-class anxieties are refracted through media saturation and consumerism; Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale reimagines class through gendered labour and reproductive control; Rushdie's Midnight's Children fuses postcolonial history with class mobility; and Roy's The God of Small Things exposes the intersections of caste, class, and colonial legacy in postmodern India. Collectively, these works demonstrate that social class in postmodern fiction is not a static determinant but a discursive site where power, identity, and resistance continually interact. Thus, the postmodern novel becomes a cultural mirror reflecting the instability of late-capitalist societies and the erosion of clear class boundaries in an age defined by global interconnection and ideological multiplicity.

Volume 13 Issue 10, October-2025

Pages : c470-c475