Betty Boop
5th Period
Final Exam Blogpost
The End of the Age of Heroes
Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur once stood as a solemn monument to chivalry, order, and the tragic fall of idealism. But viewed through the fragmented lens of Postmodernism – a worldview shaped by irony, pastiche, and meaning-making amid chaos – this legendary epic begins to glitch. It no longer reads as a coherent moral epic, but as a commentary on the disintegration of narrative certainty, the instability of identity, and the failure of grand ideological structures. Knights no longer uphold truth; they become avatars of performance. Honor is hollowed out, stories recycle themselves, and what’s left is a myth so self-aware it borders on absurd. Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, once the cornerstone of English chivalric ideals, starts to look like a looping error in the narrative machine – a story so overused it folds in on itself. That’s Postmodernism: the story of stories falling apart. Viewed through Postmodernism, Le Morte d’Arthur functions not as a celebration of knighthood, but as a metafictional artifact – one that mirrors the ironic entropy, fractured identities, and aligning with themes of detachment, recursive storytelling, and nostalgic emptiness found in Tolstaya’s “Unnecessary Things,” NNAMDÏ’s “Semantics,” and Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song.”
Fragmentation, Irony, and the Postmodern Hero
Postmodernism thrives on fragmentation, irony, and a distrust of grand narratives. These elements destabilize the certainty that classical works like Le Morte d’Arthur once upheld. In Le Morte d’Arthur, this shows up not just in Lancelot’s paradox (hero and traitor), or Arthur’s failure to unify his kingdom, but in how the text endlessly cycles through tournaments, betrayals, and redemptions that feel strangely performative. The collapse of narrative coherence reflects a Postmodern sensibility that truth is elusive, and characters are self-referential constructs. “I will not yield me to no man, for I have done none wrong.” (Book XVIII, Chapter XIII) says Lancelot. This contradiction isn’t failure—it’s the point. These knights are caught in a narrative that no longer knows what to believe. They keep performing honor while the system itself erodes. This sense of disconnection is echoed in NNAMDÏ’s “Semantics,” where the lyrics dissect language’s failure to convey meaning: “Words don’t mean a thing unless you make them.” Just as Arthur’s ideals crumble under the weight of contradiction, NNAMDÏ questions whether communication can be anything more than performative noise.
Here is the music video for "Semantics": https://youtu.be/MSDiXzFjMTE
Pastiche, Nostalgia, and the Myth of Meaning
Postmodernism often uses pastiche – mimicking styles without endorsing their values. Le Morte d’Arthur, repurposed in a postmodern context, becomes a hyper-stylized reflection of lost ideals. In “Unnecessary Things,” Tatyana Tolstaya describes a future society hoarding relics of the past – vases, books, lace – yearning for meaning in objects emptied of context. Like Arthur’s sword, these things have lost their function and now only symbolize a forgotten truth. “Things turned unnecessary,” Tolstaya writes, “but people can’t live without them.” Tolstaya’s “Unnecessary Things” captures this phenomenon: citizens of a future society hoard cultural artifacts whose meanings have long faded. In Le Morte d’Arthur, the rituals of knighthood – quests, duels, courtly love – are repeated so often they begin to feel performative, even parodic. Just as Camelot becomes an echo chamber of nostalgia, Tolstaya’s dystopia embodies a similar ache for vanished meaning.
Ctrl+Alt+Arthur
When filtered through Postmodernism, Le Morte d’Arthur is no longer the final word on knighthood – it’s a glitch in the system, endlessly cycling through ritualized failure. Like a meme of a myth, it becomes both tragic and ironic: a perfect Postmodern artifact. Whether in the recursive loops of “Pyramid Song,” the chaotic language of “Semantics,” or the ghost objects of “Unnecessary Things,” meaning is no longer inherited – it must be constantly remade. Malory’s epic becomes a mirror of Postmodern anxiety – where meaning is performative, truth is slippery, and myth is just a memory loop; postmodernism strips Arthur of his crown and re-casts him as an avatar of failure, performance, and lost significance. In a digital age addicted to irony and haunted by nostalgia, Le Morte d’Arthur speaks louder not as a relic – but as a glitch. And maybe the Round Table doesn’t represent unity anymore – it’s just a perfect shape for spinning in circles.
Listen to "Pyramid Song" here: Pyramid Song
Works Cited
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d’Arthur. Translated and edited by Stephen H. A. Shepherd, Norton Critical Edition, 2004.
NNAMDÏ. “Semantics.”
Radiohead. “Pyramid Song.”
Tolstaya, Tatyana. “Unnecessary Things.”
I like how Le Morte d’Arthur doesn’t feel like a real hero story anymore. Betty Boop makes it feel more like the knights are stuck in a loop, acting out old ideas that don’t mean much now. The part about the Round Table being a perfect shape for spinning in circles really shows how the story just keeps repeating itself without going anywhere. It’s like we keep bringing back these old myths, not because they still matter, but because we don’t know what else to believe in.
OMG I LOVEEE!! I love all of your postmodern elements, we didn't have any similar ones so getting to hear about and understand news I had not yet looked at was really interesting. They all "raise their first" and that is so hilarious. It shows the confusion and their disappointment when characters don't like something. It really was such a great post that did an even greater job of explaining!! Such a great read I am def going to send my giggle gang over to this post!
I love how all of these sources notice a physical interpretation of postmodernism, a grip on life to protest their chaotic manners. The high usage of Gifs exposes the glitches in fragmentation, while showing the opposition of postmodernism. I love the comparisons of darkness with contrasts of color.
I was intrigued by the idea of Le Morte d’Arthur as a “meme of a myth” because it made me think about how repetition in postmodernism doesn’t just drain meaning, but actually creates an eerie tension. When the knights keep reenacting quests and betrayals, it almost feels like they’re trapped in a loop they can’t escape, like characters in a video game trying to follow a script that doesn't exist. Do you think Malory’s text, when read this way, starts to feel more like a performance than a story?
This was really cool and interesting! I liked how you showed that Le Morte d’Arthur isn’t just about knights and honor, but kind of like a broken story that keeps repeating itself. The way you connected it to songs and other stories made it feel more modern and easier to understand.
I really enjoyed the way you connected the sources. You made points that I don't think personally I would have thought to think of. You showed good connections of emotions and how they reflect.
I love the connections behind each of your sources seeing how you show the "glitches" and "reflections" that I hadn't first seen when reading, it shows the connections emotionally and thought wise behind each deal.
This is so good?? I love how you turned Le Morte d’Arthur into this glitchy, looping artifact — that comparison made it click for me in a way it hadn’t before. The “meme of a myth” line?? Obsessed. And your Tolstaya connection was actually kind of sad in the best way — like people clinging to meaning that’s already crumbled. It’s all very haunting but also super clever. You nailed the postmodern vibes without it feeling forced or overly academic. Loved reading this!