1) They discover postmodernist themes, tendencies, and attitudes within literary works of the twentieth century and explore their implications.
2) They foreground fiction which might be said to exemplify the notion of the 'disappearance of the real', in which shifting post modern identities are seen, for example, in the mixing of literary genres (the thriller, the detective story, the myth saga, and the realist psychological novel etc).
3) The foreground what might be called 'inter textual elements' in literature, such as parody, pastiche, and allusion, in all of which there is a major degree of reference between on text and another, rather than between the text and a safety external reality.
4) The foreground irony, in the sense described by Umberto Eco, that whereas the modernist tries to destroy, the past, the postmodernist realises that the past must be revisited, but 'with irony' (Modernism/Postmodernism, E.D. Peter Brooker, p.227).
5) They foreground the element of 'narcissism' in narrative technique, that is, where novels forcus on and debate their own ends and processes, and thereby 'de-natrualise' their content.
6) They challenge the distinction between high and low culture, and highlight texts which work as hybrid blends of the two.
