VOL. 3 | ISSUE II | JULY – DEC | 2019 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611
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1. Introduction
Postmodernism, at present, represents the contemporary world with all its characteristics and its
influence on an individual’s life. There are many theorists namely Linda Hutcheon, Jurgen
Habermas, Ihab Hassan, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard who have
proposed their understanding of postmodernism. Though, their attempts could not define the
movement in an absolute way as this trend is still in practice and ongoing, hence, it is always
vulnerable to change. Lyotard in his The Postmodern Condition states that it is not a new
movement rather it emerged after modernism as a consequence of materialistic progress and
scientific advancements. He refers to postmodernism as a movement that shows an ‘incredulity
towards metanarrativs’ (xxiv), as it challenges the existing perceptions and thought patterns
which are based on claims of objectivity and truth. The philosophical theory of postmodernism
involves a plurality of forms/styles, pastiche, uncertainty, rootlessness of belief systems,
skepticism towards universal truth values and knowledge. The emphasis is more on subject then
content, illusion then reality and fragmentation then continuation. Another renowned postmodern
Canadian theorist named Linda Hutcheon was born in 1947. Currently, she is serving as a
professor of English in University of Toronto. Her famous books include A Poetics of
Postmodernism, A Theory of Adaptation, History, Theory, Fiction, Narcissistic Narrative,
Irony’s Edge, and A Theory of Parody. She in her book Poetic’s of Postmodernism: History,
Theory, Fiction coins the term ‘historiographic metafiction’ for those novels which reconstruct
and retell past by fusing fiction and reality through discursive strategies. “She further asserts that
fiction and history are not fixed products but, in fact, both are in a continuous process of making.
She calls such postmodern mixture of fiction and history as historiographic metafiction that
combines the ‘constructedness’ and ‘story-telling’ together” (Ashraf & Farooq 395).
Intertextuality highlights the inter-connectedness of various texts and it refers to the process, in
which, the reception and interpretation of a given text depends upon the reader’s knowledge of
other texts. Graham Allen describes intertextuality, “Texts, whether they are literary or non-
literary, as viewed by modern theorists, as lacking in any kind of independent meaning. They are
what theorists now call intertextual” (1). It reveals that no single text can have an independent
and separate identity rather every text takes a bit from the other texts and, in this way, it also

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