Metafiction

Puig’s decision to develop the characters in such a way that we question the reality time and time again is his way of criticising assumptions and standard, extreme characterisations of people. He is even chastising the reader themself for falling into the trap (which he admittedly has set) of assigning a person into a basic stereotype with only the fraction of information given. Through this, Puig challenges the traditional boundaries of the novel and the roles within it. He is also…

in version F Atwood uses metafiction and becomes even more realistic when she says, “The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die” (366). This implies that no matter how happy or sad the character’s lives were, in the end they all die. Similar to Atwood, Ives story also carries a happy tone because the goal of the story is that Betty and Bill have a happy ending together. On the contrary, Ives is not as blunt as Atwood and never uses metafiction to help create a more…

postmodern style can be very different from author to author, thus making it very hard to categorize all American postmodern literature into one specific style. Nonetheless, most generally have the following traits or elements: Paranoia, Pastiche, Metafiction, books can be of various length, magical elements, hyper reality and usually lacks a grand narrative…

Tim O’Brien always seemed to base his stories off his own experiences in one way or another. More specifically for this essay, we will be talking about “How to Tell a True War Story” in his book “The Things They Carried”. What I am getting at here is that his work never seems to be what we originally think it is. In his story “How to Tell a True War Story”, the point of the story is not about war, it is not a war story. It is a love story; it is a ghost story. It is a story about everything and…

structures—… types of strategy have the effect of interrupting and complicating the ontological “horizon” of the fiction, multiplying its worlds, and laying bare the process of world-construction" (McHale). It is one of the commonly used techniques in metafictions for creating the result of uncertainty. "A recursive structure results when you perform the same operation over and over again, each time operating on the product of the previous operation"…

indicates how they are provide a first-hand point of view of the situations which take place. The term was first established in Wayne C. Booth’s ‘The Rhetoric of Fiction’, and due to this view, some may say that due to McEwan’s incorporation of metafiction and a retrospective narrative, Joe Rose, the protagonist, can be viewed as an unreliable narrator. This therefore…

they manipulate. Although, writers cannot have it all, even within their world, there is a certain lack of control. In his novel, Atonement, Ian McEwan exquisitely demonstrates the vast authority writing has. He does such through usage of letters, metafiction, and several other methods. These methods shine a light on the control a writer has to influence people and determine the plot. However, in his novel, he also reveals there are downfalls to writing: maybe not as many or as visible as the…

“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood is an example of metafiction. This is a fiction story that refers to or takes as its subject fictional writing and its conventions. The author at the same time displays her feelings about creative writing, and then she uses her scenes to comment on living life to its fullest. Atwood presents six scenarios all with the same characters. Each of the scenes provides the same conclusion. The characters die in the end. The author cleverly presents different plots…

Contemporary Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod features the idea of story telling centrally in his short story Vision. MacLeod draws upon passionate communication, Metafiction, and first-person address to demonstrate how the context of a story is consistently determined and re-shaped depending on the intent of the teller towards the listener. MacLeod’s Vision suggests that stories are powerful methods of communication that must continuously be told, heard, and retold to ensure that they are not…

novels and novelists are also influenced by other novels, whether they agree or not. This means that the novel has to portray information or events in a way that is most realistic for the reader to understand. This rule does not apply in metafiction. Metafiction is a type of fiction in which the author alludes to the illusion of a novel by bending the normal rules and conventions in place for a realistic…