Metafiction is 'stories [which] have something to tell us about stories themselves '. In Jubilee, the reader is conscious of the telling of stories, as well as, who is narrating them, and the metafictional qualities reveal the insignificance of the storyteller. Walter Benjamin …show more content…
The story takes control of Arthur. Davies uses structure to present how the story dominates Arthur’s mind. Referring back to how Arthur ‘wondered’, Arthur only thought about the world around him, ‘for a moment’. Davies encourages the reader to pause for this 'moment '. The bracketed clause suspends the moment in the text, and its brevity emphasises how brief the train of thought is. However, the story quickly pulls Arthur back into his internal narrative. The reader empathises how briefly Arthur escaped thinking about his grief, as structurally, the reader experienced the effect of the short clause. The story Arthur tells isn 't dependent on his own narrative, instead it controls the way he thinks and presents this internal dialogue. Through the internalisation of Arthur’s feelings, and the control the story has over his mind, Davies isolates Arthur from the narrative of the …show more content…
The two paragraphs reflect one another in structure. The first sentence sets the scene and then the narrator slipping into reciting a list. For example, ‘crimson-draped platform’, the ‘yards and yards of flags’, and ‘bunting… streamers… the row upon row of… crowds’ reflects the way Arthur’s mind previously spiralled out of control over his grief. The way both paragraphs parallel one another forces the reader to compare Arthur’s grief and story to the festivities of the day. Arthur’s tale of grief becomes a celebration. It becomes comparable to the ‘dream’ like day with all its lavishness. Structurally, the ‘yards and yards’ and ‘row upon row’ reflect the repetition of ‘every minute of every day’ and echo the same topic of multiplication. However, Davies omits the use of connectives, replacing them with commas. The pace of the paragraph is quicker and the celebrations spin out of control. This reflects how Arthur’s grief has spun out of control and become part of the Jubilee. The reader is self-aware of the comparison between celebration and grief, Davies forces you to make it. The metafictional device encourages the reader to become the subject isolating Arthur narrative and focusing on the story itself. Davies iterates that the narrator doesn’t isolate themselves from the story; in fact the recipients of it detach the storyteller from the