Many literary pieces were written during the Victorian era, often revolving around the concepts of death and love. The Victorian era was marked by unequal treatment of women and enormous technological advancements. It was considered an important literary period with Romanticism at the forefront. However, the novel Sixty Lights by Gail Jones contradicts readers' expectations of a novel set in the Victorian era. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Jones' novel follows the postmodern movement which is seen as a response to previously accepted expectations in the culture and literature of the time. The Oxford Dictionary defines postmodernism as an artistic and critical style and concept of the late 20th century, characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixture of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of regard to theories. Jones uses postmodern techniques to challenge people's expectations of the Victorian period and uses the perspective of people marginalized in the Victorian era to allow readers to recognize different aspects of the era. Jones also uses the technique of fragmentation to distort time and allow the reader to view multiple experiences, points of view, and memories. Jones also references other texts in his novel to foreshadow events and includes the different ways in which one text references another. The novel, Sixty Lights, begins chronicling the life of eight-year-old Lucy Strange with her brother Thomas as they experience the deaths of their mother, Honoria, and father, Arthur. Lucy is the protagonist of the novel, contradicting the expectations of Victorian novels of the time which would have seen Thomas take the lead. Lucy represents the marginalization of women in the Victorian era and challenges the way women were expected to behave and think during that era. This is a common practice in postmodernist texts. This is shown in the novel when Lucy was fourteen years old and working in a factory full of eggs. Rose, one of Lucy's co-workers, who has been "coiled up and abused by her much larger husband", must be seen by her overbearing husband. Lucy bravely confronts him and authoritatively asks him to leave. In response, she is hit in the face with the back of her hand. Although Lucy was hit, she was able to make the man leave and give the other women hope and strength, as the narration shows: "All that senseless bravery and her bruised face, dripping blood , lying on its side in a thin pool of broken debris. eggs that look like so many broken and still sparkling lights. This completely ignores the literary expectations of Victorian novels and offers a postmodernist perspective, revealing how women are just as strong and important as male figures. Lucy's character also defies the expectations of women of the time as she openly expresses her opinions and thoughts, acting freely, without being oppressed or controlled by anyone. The marginalized view of women continues in the novel Sixty Lights, where Honoria's life is recounted. . Honoria's point of view continues to defy expectations of literary novels set in the Victorian era by openly expressing her opinions and showing that she is in control and not repressed by male figures, including her husband. When Honoria was pregnant with her first child, she observed the changes in her body and reflected on her changes. The bookrecounts: “In the first two years of their marriage, Honoria Strange had unlearned and relearned her body, and now, at twenty, it seemed uncultivated again. Yet she faced herself naked in the mirror and lived her own existence as total self-control. This continues the idea that Honoria was in complete control of her decisions, her life and her body and was not oppressed by male authority figures like her father or husband who were supposed to have ownership and control over her at the time. Victorian era. This postmodern text reveals the perspective of women, a highly marginalized group during this time, and presents the idea that women are capable of freely expressing themselves and their opinions and are more than someone's possession . The novel, Sixty Lights, continually changes the characters' points of view and distorts time. This allows the characters to reflect on memories and different moments in their lives. The novel can only achieve this through postmodernism and the technique of fragmentation. Fragmentation is when experiences are described in chronological order and include dream immersions and side stories. It is used to imitate human memory. It expresses the idea that time and experiences are relative. At the end of chapter eleven, Lucy goes through her mother's belongings after her death and tries to summon her mother's face, but is unsuccessful. From that moment on, she looks carefully at every face she sees, intending not to forget a face. “And any photographic ambition will revolve around invoking a face and retrieving that which languishes just beyond vision. Years later, in the middle of the night, in a bend in time, Lucy wakes up and finds herself whispering the words: mother-of-pearl. After that, Lucy clearly remembers all of her mother's things. This use of fragmentation allows the author to replicate human memory and change the sequence and direction of the story. This postmodern technique challenges the rigid structure of novels set in the Victorian era by offering a story that is neither linear nor subjective. An element of postmodernism is intertextuality which is expressed in the novel Sixty Lights. This alludes to and predicts the outcome of the novel. Intertextuality is the way in which the meaning of one text is shaped by another text. It is defined as the association between similar literary works that controls the audience's interpretation of a text. The author uses this technique to compare the novel to "Jane Eyre" and "Great Expectations", reminding readers of their similarity several times in the novel. All three novels focus on an orphan who goes through a great struggle or suffers a great loss in his life. Both Sixty Lights and the novel Jane Eyre have strong female heroines who guide the narrative. However, “Great Expectations” has a male protagonist but is still so marginalized and experiences similar struggles to Jane Eyre and Lucy Strange. Jones decided to compare her novel to these coming-of-age novels to foreshadow the experiences Lucy will have and control readers' interpretation of the novel as a journey of self-discovery with a strong female protagonist. The author also uses the technique of pastiche which involves imitating other texts and adopting the styles and ideas of the original while creating something new. This is evident in the novel Sixty Lights, due to the many similarities between the texts "Jane Eyre" and "Great Expectations". Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get Custom EssayThe Sixty Novel.