What do you understand by the term ‘historiographic metafiction’? Apply this concept to TWO of the texts from weeks 2-8 and consider how historic fiction operates through the gap between the event and the fact.
The term historiographic metafiction as Patrica Waugh notes is “fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages”. In other words, history itself is highly textual and is always subject to critical interpretation. This essay will focus on historiographic metafiction in relation to ‘First lives club: Pretend Blood by Margaret Atwood and ‘The Birds’ by Daphne du Maurier and how historic fiction like this operates through the gap between the event and the fact with comparison to Art Spiegelman’s “The Complete Maus” which is considered to be biographical rather than metafiction.
‘The Birds’ by Daphne du Maurier (1952) draws also on Du Maurier’s own experience with a bird attack. Historiographic metafiction therefore enables the reader to never forget world tragedies such as wars, but writers attempt to fill in gaps. In the beginning of the story, ‘bird attacks’ are thought to be brought about the cold change believed to be from Russia. As Mrs Trigg asks Nat “Can you …show more content…
Compared to metafictional works from both Du Maurier and Atwood, Maus acts as a biographical piece in which the author is both Art and Vladek (the father) telling the story. With Art using animals for representing the US, Germans and Jews, this form of intertextuality allowed Spiegalman to paraphrase his father’s story (Pfister 1991:208). Such as the inclusion of an orchestra playing whilst being debated by his father that there wasn’t an orchestra playing in the camp
The term historiographic metafiction as Patrica Waugh notes is “fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages”. In other words, history itself is highly textual and is always subject to critical interpretation. This essay will focus on historiographic metafiction in relation to ‘First lives club: Pretend Blood by Margaret Atwood and ‘The Birds’ by Daphne du Maurier and how historic fiction like this operates through the gap between the event and the fact with comparison to Art Spiegelman’s “The Complete Maus” which is considered to be biographical rather than metafiction.
‘The Birds’ by Daphne du Maurier (1952) draws also on Du Maurier’s own experience with a bird attack. Historiographic metafiction therefore enables the reader to never forget world tragedies such as wars, but writers attempt to fill in gaps. In the beginning of the story, ‘bird attacks’ are thought to be brought about the cold change believed to be from Russia. As Mrs Trigg asks Nat “Can you …show more content…
Compared to metafictional works from both Du Maurier and Atwood, Maus acts as a biographical piece in which the author is both Art and Vladek (the father) telling the story. With Art using animals for representing the US, Germans and Jews, this form of intertextuality allowed Spiegalman to paraphrase his father’s story (Pfister 1991:208). Such as the inclusion of an orchestra playing whilst being debated by his father that there wasn’t an orchestra playing in the camp