The Culture of Excess in the Postmodern World

Abstract

An age of universal commodification has created a culture based on excess. The world is going through a heightened phase of multinational capitalism. Capitalism produces desires in the masses according to the needs of production. The new modes of communication have intensified the process of commodification. The individual tends to have less value than the commodity. The body itself has to bear the signs of the consumer culture. The masses get weighed down by the system of images that constitute the simulacrum. All areas of intellectual activity become pervaded by historical, ideological and philosophical indeterminacy. Dehumanisationand fragmentation have become rampant in all realms of human activity.This condition of culture gets reflected in the literary text which becomes aprime source of excess.