ABSTRACT
The paradoxical interweaving of text and context constitutes one of the mechanisms working within the postmodernist model of artistic unity. This is why comprehension of the principles behind the playful relations between the text and certain cultural and aesthetic contexts is so important for determining the generic and stylistic features of postmodernist fiction. Certainly, no single literary text of any artistic significance can exist outside the complicated network of relations with the cultural context, often including alienation from one set of traditions and attraction to another. The postmodernist play with context is different primarily because the same traditions spark both attraction and alienation simultaneously, with the natural result that they cancel each other out.
