postmodern-metafiction

[postmodern-metafiction]

Analysis and Theory Application on The Tiger’s Bride, The Company of Wolves and The Lovely Bones

           The theory of metafiction cannot be defined or explained in a singular way, for it concerns with a few unconventional forms found in fiction works. Waugh stated that one of the ways metafiction element is embedded on selected fiction work is when the original outline of a fictional text is given twist whereby authors commonly parodized a fiction’s conventional content (4). Other than that, one of the most known concepts on metafiction is the concept of the blurry line that exists between two worlds; fiction and reality.

          Two reading materials were chosen for the purposes of analysis and theory application, which are The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The Bloody Chamber is a collection of multiple fictional works, containing a total of ten short stories which were parodied after well-known fairy tales. The tales which are chosen for the analysis are The Tiger’s Bride and The Company of Wolves. These two tales are renditions of the conventional tales of Beauty and The Beast and Little Red Riding Hood respectively. Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, on the other hand, is about a fourteen-year-old murder victim who narrates the events that take place preceeding and following her death and how her loved ones, her murderer as well as the narrator herself deal with her death.

          This essay will discuss various metafiction aspects that are found in two selected texts from Angela Carter’s anthology The Bloody Chamber and Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones through analysis of the elements of metafiction concerning intertextuality, parallelism, parody and breaking the fourth wall by a character.

ANALYSIS ON ANGELA CARTER’S THE TIGER’S BRIDE

          Women are often perceived as the weaker sex among the two genders. Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride proves that women are of less or no value in comparison to men. Upon further reading this tale, it can be seen that The Tiger’s Bride is a parody to Madame de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast that was written in 1756. This analysis will be focusing on the dynamic relationship between men and women and the way women are perceived in both of these tales. Not only that, this analysis will also be focusing on the intertextuality elements that can be found in both of these tales.

          Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride is clear cut a parody of Madame de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast. Parody in metafiction is when a text imitates another for satirical purpose which is usually meant to mock the original fiction (Carter 4). Both of these tales offer a similar storyline, despite having a number of plot twists along the way that would differentiate these two tales.

          In both of the tales, it is clear that the character of women, or Beauty, are associated with a certain degree of passiveness. In Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride, Beauty is traded by her father due to him losing a game of cards to Beast. Beauty has no choice but to surrender to the trap that was set by her father. On the contrary, Madame de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast, Beauty willingly chose to surrender herself to the Beast in order to save her father. Even though in Madame de Beaumont’s story, Beauty willingly made the decision to follow the Beast, she still had to passively follow the rule of Beast instead of rebelling against him.

          Another similarity that can be seen in these two tales is the characteristics of the Beast. In Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride, the Beast is described as “a tiger with fur, pads and claws” (61) that was ready to hunt and kill. The Beast’s description further emphasizes the manliness of the Beast. Carter further wrote that, “the tiger sat still as a heraldic beast, in the pact he had made with his own ferocity to do me no harm” (64). Not only that, the “rich, thick, wild scent” that the Beast “soaked himself” the first time Beauty saw him portrays the masculinity of the Beast (Carter 58). From another point of view, Beast’s beastliness can also be interpreted as his sexuality. This can be seen when he demanded through his valet to see Beauty naked (Carter 58, 61).

          In Madame de Beaumont’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’, the Beast is portrayed parallel to the ‘The Tiger’s Bride’. The Beast in Madame de Beaumont’s story is often associated with the act of violence. This can be seen when the Beast was ready to kill Beauty’s father when he plucked a rose from the Beast’s garden (35). Not only that, it can be seen that the Beast desires for Beauty when he repeatedly asked for Beauty’s hand in marriage (De Beaumont 38-39). This at the same time portrays the sexuality side of the Beast and his masculinity as well.

          Another intertextual reference that can be found in these two tales is allusion. Allusion is an indirect reference in one text that originated from another text (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). However, this technique fully relies on the audience or the reader’s knowledge to be able to develop the meaning. In these two stories, ‘Rose’ is an allusion that is used by Carter from the text by Madame de Beaumont. In Madame de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast, a rose is mentioned at the beginning of the story when Beauty asked for a rose from his father, and was mentioned again when Beauty’s father wanted to pluck a rose from the Beast’s garden for Beauty (34-35). In Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride, the flower was first mentioned when Beauty went to Beast’s house for the first time and Beast handed her a bouquet of flowers. It was later mentioned again when Beauty handed a stem of rose "all smeared with blood” due to the fact that she accidentally pricked her finger (51).

          The ending of these two tales are parallel to each other. In Madame de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast, Beauty remained passive throughout the entire tale. This can be seen when she says, “Aren’t I terrible for causing grief to someone who has done so much to please me?” (De Beaumont 40). Beauty decided to accept the Beast’s hand in marriage for the “kindness” that the Beast has portrayed her throughout the stay. Beauty’s gratitude towards the Beast further nudged her decision when Beast allowed her to visit her father which was not well (De Beaumont 39). It is evident that the relationship between Beauty and the Beast remained virtuous (De Beaumont 42) and not sexual which is contrary to Carter’s tale. The Beast in De Beaumont’s version of the story decided to take after Beauty’s passiveness and “civility” by patiently waiting for Beauty’s return instead of forcing her to be with him and later transforming into a charming prince (De Beaumont 42). This shows that Beast decided to let go of his animalistic side to be with Beauty.

          Angela Carter, on the other hand, decided to end her version of the story in an opposite manner. Carter’s Beauty, instead of being passive, decided to embrace her womanhood and sexuality to be with Beast. Instead of changing who Beast is, Beauty decided to bring out her animalistic side. At the end of the tale, Beauty decided to go into the Beast’s room and it was mentioned that, “He dragged himself closer and closer to me, until I felt the harsh velvet of his head against my hand, then a tongue, abrasive as sandpaper. ‘He will lick the skin off me!’ And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and let behind a nascent patina of shining hairs.” (Carter 67). The term nascent here connotes the process of being born. This proves to the reader that Beauty is bringing out her animalistic side to match the attributes of Beast had along.

          Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride observe the element of metafiction in the sense that it intertextualizes and parodizes Madame de Beaumont’s Beauty and The Beast. Carter’s version of the story contains a significant amount of plot to intertextualize de Beaumont’s Beauty and The Beast. However, instead of having her story end in the same manner, Carter parodizes de Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast by allowing Beauty to venture off a whole different path than the de Beaumont’s Beauty. Both of these tales share the same element of metafiction, which is a parody in intertextuality. The application of the concept of metafiction allows readers to understand deeper the concept behind these two tales which are almost two centuries apart.

ANALYSIS ON ANGELA CARTER’S THE COMPANY OF WOLVES

          One of the aspects in metafiction theory discusses on how the convention of fiction works is challenged. The conventional content and storyline of novels or fiction works were tweaked or altered for the purpose of parodying or commenting on the convention form of the fictional works (Waugh 4). Angela Carter wrote The Company of Wolves based on the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood which was written by Grimm brothers in 19th century. This part of the essay will elaborate on the resemblances of the content between Grimms’ Little Red Riding Hood and The Company of Wolves, the differences, and the portrayal of men and women in Carter’s work.

          One of the most notable elements which resembles that of Little Red Riding Hood in the tale written by Carter is the existence of characters as such wolves, a girl, the girl’s parents, and a sickly granny. These characters which were found in The Company of Wolves are the characters which are in the short story Little Red Riding Hood. Furthermore, these characters too were given the qualities similar to those of the characters in Little Red Riding Hood. For instance, the ‘granny’ character in both stories was sick and the little girls both owned a red hood or shawl. In a line from Carter’s selected short story, the phrase “had been indulged by her mother and the grandmother who’d knitted her the red shawl” (143), is evident that the girls in both tales share the same piece of red clothing. Additionally, both girls in the two stories bring along a cake and a bottle of liquor for the grandmother who lives outside the village.

          The portrayal of the girl in Carter’s The Company of Wolves at certain point differs from the one in Grimms’ Little Red Riding Hood. The girl in Grimms’ seems to be of a child who is bubbly and unaware of the danger lurking around her. It is evident as she “met the wolf; but as she did not know what a bad sort of animal he was, she did not feel frightened” (Grimm 1). Carter’s character of the girl however seems to have been given opposite characteristics whereby she is always vigilant of her surrounding and has high confidence that she could take care of herself, despite being aware of the possible danger waiting for her in the forest. She is described to be a ��strong minded child” and “is quite sure the beasts cannot harm her” (Carter 142). The girl too is notably prepared in guarding her safety as she “lays a carving knife in the basket” (Carter 142).

          Aside from the resemblance in the characters from both stories, there are also parallels found in the storyline. A part in The Company of Wolves which resembles the storyline of Little Red Riding Hood is when the girl goes off into the winter wood to bring the cake and liquor to her sick grandmother. Similarly, the basket was packed with food by the mother of the girl. Resemblance is further found as she stumbled upon a figure while making her way into the winter wood. Apparently, the figure that the girl in both stories stumbled upon is a wolf.

          In both tales, the girl character meets a figure on the way to her grandmother’s house. In the Little Red Riding Hood, the girl stumbled upon a literal figure of a wolf. Grimm Brothers wrote “and when Little Red Riding Hood had reached the wood, she met the wolf” (Grimm 1). Meanwhile, the girl in The Company of Wolves too met a wolf which she at first was not aware of. This is due to the reason that Carter reconstructed the figure of the wolf by replacing it with an incarnated wolf-man figure instead. It was stated in the line whereby Carter wrote “The wolf is carnivore incarnate” (146) connoting that the man is not a literal animal figure wolf. Carter has hinted upon the readers earlier that the young man is actually a wolf through phrases as such “There is a faint trace of blood on his chin; he has been snacking on his catch” (Carter 145) and “with his hairy knuckle” (Carter 146).

          Carter’s tale The Company of Wolves highlights the issue of how women the victims of men’s physical and sexual abuse. This is arguably the reason why Carter parodied Little Red Riding Hood, which is to address the stated issue. Woman, in Carter’s tale is portrayed to exist only to marry, cater to their family members, and satisfy the sexual needs of man. For instance, young woman, which is mentioned in the earlier part of the tale was told to have married a man who apparently went missing on the night of their wedding. She later on went on with her life, remarried, and bore children after. In the story, the young woman was beaten by both of her husbands, one who is a man-wolf and one who is a man. These men, despite them being slightly different in nature, are both abusive towards the young woman (Bishida).

          The girl in Carter’s tale has been portrayed since her early appearance to be courageous. A twist was given in the end of Carter’s version deviating from that of Grimm’s conventional tale. Towards the end of the story, Carter represents the acceptance of the girl being entrapped in the clasp of the incarnated wolf by turning her into a girl who willingly slept with the wolf. It is notable among readers that the girl actually acknowledged that there is no escaping the cage she was in thus she rendered herself to the wolf. “At the heart of this story is the hideous coercion that needs no violence, as the girl already knows what the ‘tender wolf’ is capable of” (Bishida). This depicts the sexual abuse which is faced by woman, which at some point in the reality world women will tend to give in to what men want for they know that they are indeed powerless and helpless to stand against men and what they are capable of doing. The girl in the story hence was ‘willing’ and gave in to the wolf because she knew that was the only way for her to survive.

          In a nutshell, there are elements of intertextuality found in Carter’s work, The Company of Wolves and the conventional tale of Little Red Riding Hood in the form of parody. Angela Carter notably creates parodies out of fairy tales in order to address issues concerning the relationship between man and woman. Understanding the concept of retelling stories based on metafiction theory will enable readers to fathom the tales better.

ANALYSIS ON ALICE SEBOLD’S THE LOVELY BONES

          A work of metafiction is often considered one that draws attention to its status as a work of fiction. According to Waugh, metafiction writing self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact, which leads to the emergence of questions about the fictional and reality aspects of the work (2). Literary works that are written by means of metafiction often draw and dissolve the line between reality and fantasy, leaving readers to question the ambiguity of the work’s fiction and non-fiction characteristics.

          There are several methods on how to produce a work of literature that contains metafictional aspects. While more popular works of metafiction often address the use of previous literature works as part of their newly produced story, whether they be a reference, parody, satire and others, there are also works of metafiction that draw and dissolve the line between fiction and reality by directly or indirectly addressing readers of the book. In a sense, the literary work is drawing attention to its own artificial nature by breaking the fourth wall by referencing the audience at some points of the story.

          A literary work that perfectly exemplifies this type of metafiction concept is Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. The plot of this book follows fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon as she narrates about her life and observes her family on the earthly plane as she watches them over from what she calls as ‘heaven’. After being raped and brutally murdered by one of her neighbours, Susie, unsettled with leaving her family and friends and unable to live her life to its’ fullest, was uncapable to fully move on from the earthly plane and proceed to ‘heaven’, therefore leaving her in the ‘in-between’ where she narrates her life story, looks out for her family and loved ones, as well as observing her murderer. The story is told by Susie herself, which makes the book narrated by a first-person protagonist. Sebold exhibits this type of metafiction through allowing the narrator of the story, who is also the protagonist, to address the readers of the story at some points of the book, therefore breaking the fourth wall that keeps the whole story in its fictionalized form.

          An example of this concept of metafiction can be seen in the excerpt below:

                    I wasn’t killed by Mr. Botte, by the way. Don’t think every person                            you’re going to meet in here is suspect. That’s the problem. You                            never know (Sebold 6).

Preceding the excerpt, Susie explains how she was only fourteen years old when she was murdered on the 6th of December in the year 1973. Leaving out the identity of the murderer, she then proceeds to talk about her junior high school interests and experiences, in which she expresses favouritism over her biology teacher Mr. Botte. Natural human instinct may cause readers to immediately be wary of this Mr. Botte for multiple reasons; one of them being the fact that due to him being Susie’s favourite teacher, Susie may have the tendency to trust him more than she trusts other male teachers. A reader may interpret Susie’s trust towards Mr. Botte as vulnerability, whereby she could trust him enough to follow his instructions and directions.

          However, readers are made aware that Mr. Botte is not the suspect that everyone expects through Susie’s revelation. The sentence “I wasn’t killed by Mr. Botte, by the way” depicts Susie directly addressing the readers, countering the audience’s suspicions about Mr. Botte. It also reveals that Susie, despite being a character herself, broke out of her storyline to address the audience of their suspicions. The line “Don’t think every person you’re going to meet in here is suspect” firmly suggests that Susie, the fictional protagonist, is directly addressing the readers from the real world by telling them that readers should not always go along with their assumptions based on the reading material. The “you” in the line suggests that Susie was referring to the audience of the book and “in here” suggests the fictional world and its events that she is currently narrating.

          Another example of Sebold writing in lieu with the concept of metafiction can be seen in this excerpt:

                    “This little girl is grown up by now,” she said.

                    Almost.

                    Not quite.

                    I wish you all a long and happy life (328).

The excerpt above refers to the very last line of the book The Lovely Bones and is uttered by Susie. The book ends with a married couple finding Susie’s old charm bracelet in an industrial park and the wife commenting that the person whose charm bracelet had been is probably grown up by now, to which Susie narrates that she is not quite what a person can consider “grown up” as her death prevented her from reaching that stage of life. However, the metafiction element in this excerpt happens to be Susie’s very last utterance in the book, which is “I wish you all a long and happy life.”

          The “you all” that Susie uttered may refer to multiple different audiences: the married couple, her loved ones, the audience of the book and “you” in general. Contextually, it was spoken in response to the married couple’s comments on how Susie is grown up by now, and it can be interpreted as Susie replying to the married couple that although she is not necessarily grown up, she wishes that the two of them would get the opportunity to live a long and happy life, something which she did not receive herself.

          However, it may also be interpreted as Susie wishing the audience of the book “a long and happy life.” This is because, despite being written in the scene where the married couple finds her charm bracelet, it was never directly mentioned that she was referring to any character in the book. Moreover, Sebold’s way of writing the sentence could have turned out as “I wish them all a long and happy life” as to refer to the characters within the fictional story. Her decision to use a direct “you” in the sentence can be argued that Susie was not just addressing the characters in the story, but that her well wishes could also extend to the readers, audience of the story and also the general “you”, which means that anyone who comes across the phrase would receive Susie’s well wishes.

          Sebold’s decision to use a general and direct “you” instead of Susie’s usual “them” while referring to the characters in which she shares a story with can be interpreted as Sebold allowing her character Susie to venture out to the ‘real’ world and connect with the audience by giving them well wishes. This ultimately highlights the element of metafiction whereby Susie does not only refer to the other characters in the story, but also refers to the audience and readers. By doing so, Sebold makes it evident that the character in her fictional work acknowledges non-fictional aspects that ventures outside the world that she created.

          Sebold’s The Lovely Bones exhibits firm elements of metafiction whereby the author allows the protagonist to break the fourth wall of the fictional story and connect with the readers from reality. Sebold’s decision to use pronouns as a form of blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction ultimately makes her a writer capable of writing and creating metafiction.

CONCLUSION

          Based on the analyses done on the chosen literary works, it is evident that metafiction is a postmodern literary device that allows authors to experiment with various writing styles, plot construction as well as to test the waters between fiction and non-fiction. Angela Carter’s decision to write her anthology based on classic stories and Alice Sebold’s decision to allow her characters to dissolve the barrier of fiction and reality both exemplify their ability to create metafiction and also involve their audience in understanding and fathoming their work based on the contexts that they were trying to deliver. This is because metafiction allows writers to write in unconventional and abstract ways that enables the audience to pose questions and engage themselves in the fictional world in accordance to reality.

ENGL 4620 - Literary Criticism

Sem. 1, 2019/2020

Section 2

Name of Lecturer: Miss Nurul Fateha

Group 6

Khairun Nuha Binti Khairul Bazli (1528896)

Sarah Afifah Binti Abdul Basir (1529504)

Siti Mariam Ahmad Jamil (1525996)

Jarzreen Binti Jaffri (1529040)

 

WORKS CITED

Basu-Zharku, Iulia O. "'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Tiger's Bride': To Be or Not To Be a Beast?" Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 3.01 (2011). http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=359

Bidisha. “Angela Carter's Wolf Tales ('The Werewolf', 'The Company of Wolves' and 'Wolf-Alice').” The British Library, 25 July 2016, https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/angela-carters-wolf-tales.

Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. New York: Penguin Group, 1993.

De Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie LePrince. “Beauty and the Beast.” The Classic Fairy Tales. Ed. Maria Tatar. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, (1999). 32-42.

Grimm, Jacob Ludwig, and Wilhelm Carl Grimm. GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 1812, http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/story089.pdf.

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. Picador, 2002.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Allusion.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 12 May 2017, https://www.britannica.com/art/allusion#:~:targetText=Allusion, in literature, an implied,will understand the author's referent.

Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction. Routledge, 2013.

[postmodern-metafiction]

Postmodernism in Relation to Modernism and Patricia Waugh’s Metafiction

           Modernism emerged in Europe and America as a series of movements in the years between 1910 and 1930. Some of the prominent figures in the Modernist movement are Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, Bertolt Brecht, Pablo Picasso and William Faulkner (Habib 194). Modernist writers often produce literary works that perceive the world in a whole new light all while discrediting various old ideologies such as science, progress, rationality, civilization and imperialism (Habib 195).

           Postmodernism, on the other hand, as said by Lethen, “the postmodern situation created the possibility to see modernism as a closed and rather rigid entity.” (Connor 113). Postmodernism refers to the idea of using new ways of thinking about thought. The process of transformation from modernism to postmodernism happened as the former idea no longer fits the society condition. Postmodernism has brought forth a variety of political changes and effects due to its unorthodox ideologies and some of the issues that arise in postmodernism are associated with certain movements and groups such as the feminist movement, gay rights movement, anti-globalization movement and more. In a way, postmodernism is attempting a paradigm shift of writing, progressing from the Modernists’ rigid notions of science and reason towards a more flexible and abstract way of thinking (Connor 115).

THE CONCEPT OF METAFICTION

         The term ‘Metafiction’ was mentioned by Gass in his book ‘Fiction and the Figures of Life’. He further elaborated that the term is widely used as time passes as more authors has come to an understanding with the term (24). Later, Robert Scholes develops more on Gass’s theory and lists four forms of criticism that metafiction can integrate these viewpoints into the fictional process.

          Metafiction revolves around the self-consciousness of fiction work on the fact that it is fiction and highlights how there is actually a very thin line between the two worlds of fiction and reality (Waugh 2). It is recognized as a method of narration which is used by authors in their literary works. This concept has been going around for quite some time despite only been given the term ‘metafiction’ not too long ago. It was primarily found to be coined in William H. Gass’s essay. The prefix meta actually connotes ‘about’, thus the term metafiction brings the literal meaning of ‘about fiction’. Waugh further defines metafiction as below:

“Metafiction is a term given to 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.” (2)

        From the given definition by Patricia Waugh, metafiction is a literary technique purposely used by authors as an attention grabber and it too serve the purpose to make the readers think more about the indistinct line which exists between fiction and reality.

         Waugh explained in her book that the circumstance of literary works being construed by the use of language could help us in understanding the real world. This is due to the reason that the dissemination of knowledge is facilitated through the use of language (3). In other words, language is a large part of the reality world thus literary fiction which obviously uses language in content construction has enabled people to comprehend the structure of reality world. Hence, that could be why metafiction questions the relationship between the two worlds made separated by most people; reality and fiction. Arguably, metafictionists shared a point of view that both fiction and reality are interconnected with one another.

        As a metafictionist, Waugh believed that every novel has the tendency to contain metafiction literary device. She added that whoever learns about metafiction will be able to figure out the novels’ identity as they will ultimately be able to notice the shared nature in fiction works. Novels has no exact standard form and there is no one definite way to define novels. In a way, it thus is unstable. The unstable elements in novels are then highlighted through metafiction literary device and next aid in uncovering that novels are a jumble of things put into one. For instance, everyday historical forms of communication (which utilizes different forms of language) as such memoirs, journals, histories, journal records, etc. can be found in novels (5).

PAIRS OF CRITICS IN METAFICTION

          Werner Wolf, in his books states that metafiction can be further broken down into four pairs of critics that can later be combined with each other (37). The first point is the explicit and implicit metafiction. This pair comments on “its own artificiality and is easily quotable”. Explicit metafiction can be described as a “mode of telling”. This concept can be observed through the way a narrator explains the story as the story is ongoing.

           Implicit metafiction on the other hand foregrounds the topic through various techniques such as metalepsis. Metalepsis is the usage of a figure of speech in which the word or phrase is used in a new context. Implicit metafiction relies on the reader’s abilities to be able to recognize these techniques in order to conjure a metafictional analysis. Explicit metafiction is described as a “mode of telling” whereas implicit metafiction can be described as “mode of showing” (Wolf 37).

          The second pair of the form is the direct and indirect metafiction. Direct metafiction creates a reference within the text that one is reading. Opposite to this, indirect metafiction uses metareferences externally to the text that one is reading. Such an example would be parody. One cannot make a parody, either a genre in literature or in movies, without an external reference to another book or another movie. Since there is an established relationship between the current book one is reading and the other book that was referred to in the book indirectly, indirect metafiction does influence the copy that one is reading.

          The third pair is called as the critical and non-critical metafiction. This pair is originated regularly in postmodernist fiction which targets to find the inauthenticity or the fictionality of a text critically. Non-critical metafiction, on the other hand, does not criticize or undermine the fictionality of a text, and it claims that it can be used to “suggest that the story one is reading is authentic” (Wolf 38).

           Last but not least, the final pair in metafiction is the generally media-centered and the truth-fiction-centered metafiction. Generally, media-centered circles around the metafiction that deals with the media quality of fiction or in the form of narrative. However, in some cases, there are additional focus on the reliability or the ingenuity of a text. The idea of a story being authentic would be an example of truth-centered metafiction.

WORKS OF METAFICTION

           Despite only being used in the late 20th century, and is commonly interconnected to post-modernism literature, there have been multiple works of literature in the past centuries that intentionally reference the fictional nature of their texts that distinguishes the line between fiction and reality.

           An example of metafiction used in earlier works of literature is the 16th century play, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. In Act I, the prologue of the play, Shakespeare intentionally reveals to the then-audience, and current readers of the classic story, that the whole play is fictional (27). Even going as far as spoiling the ending of the play in the prologue, it was then understood that the reason why Shakespeare dissolved the line between fiction and reality was because the playwright believed that most people who came to see the play were uneducated and uncivilized. Presuming that if the audience had not been informed beforehand that the play was fictional and if the audience truly did think that the actors who portrayed the characters were dead in real life, it was feared that a ruckus and a riot would break out during the ending, therefore causing a state of panic. Thus, the prologue was written so that the readers, or the audience of Shakespeare’s time, will be able to distinguish that the play is fictional and not real.

         Although it fits the concept of metafiction, Romeo and Juliet fails to portray metafiction in the context of postmodernism, as it was written and referenced in the late 16th century. However, the concept of metafiction can be seen in Shakespeare’s writing of the story’s prologue, where he intentionally reveals that the story is a work of fiction and should not be taken literally.

         Since metafiction has been a key instrument in experimental fiction, there has been a surge in works of metafiction in recent postmodern literature. Works that are considered postmodern are usually comprised of those that rely on narrative techniques such as having an unreliable narrator, engaging in multiple critical theories such as the reader-response theory, deconstruction approach and metafiction.

          An example of a literary work that can be considered postmodern metafiction is the novel Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis. The book is a mock memoir that was published in 2005 and it is considered a postmodern horror literary work that displays Ellis’ personal early life in the beginning of the book and continues on with fictionalized aspects of his life, therefore making the story neither entirely fictional nor entirely real. The novel is also written in a way that the ‘I’ is ambiguous and that it can refer to either the author and the narrator or both. Baelo-Allué comments on the inclusion of metafictional devices, citing that most of the aspects of the novel were taken from Ellis’s previous works, and that the author also includes sources that are both high and low, referencing songs, TV shows, Barrie’s Peter Pan, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Stephen King in the novel (111).

           CRITICISM AND LIMITATIONS OF METAFICTION

         Even though the term ‘metafiction’ is new, the concept of metafiction is as old as time. The work that contains metafiction elements can be traced back to as early as the 14th century, such as “Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer (1387) up until recent fiction works such as “The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adam (1979). The term has been widely argued by parties that are either against it or support it as a genre that is supposedly a rebirth to a novel’s genre. Some of the anti-postmodernists claim that metafiction signifies the “death or exhaustion of the novel as a genre” (Gass 5).

        Other theorists also often face the problem of differentiating the definition which either refers to modern metafiction or if it covers all works that contain self-reflexivity. One of the theorists, John Barth, briefly explains metafiction as a “novel that imitates a novel rather than the real world” (161). Authors and writers who use metafiction in their writing attempts to blur the line between fiction and reality for the reader. However, Barth firmly states that by using metafiction in the writing, it only emphasizes to the reader that what they are reading is a fiction and nothing more (161).

CONCLUSION

       Metafiction is a literary device that draws the line between reality and fantasy, as well as dissolving the line and leaving the readers in a state of limbo with the ambiguity of the aspect of fiction and non-fiction of the literary work. It is apparent that metafiction has played a huge part in postmodern literature, whereby authors of many literary works have been experimenting on their writing using this concept and its various techniques to create a fresh and distinctive work of literature.

 ENGL 4620 - Literary Criticism

Sem. 1, 2019/2020

Section 2

Name of Lecturer: Miss Nurul Fateha

Group 6

Khairun Nuha Binti Khairul Bazli (1528896)

Sarah Afifah Binti Abdul Basir (1529504)

Siti Mariam Ahmad Jamil (1525996)

Jarzreen Binti Jaffri (1529040)

Works Cited

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory - an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory: Fourth. Manchester University Press, 2017.

Connor, Steven. Postmodernist Culture: an Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary. Blackwell, 2006.

Gass, William H. Fiction and the Figures of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Habib, Rafey. Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present: an Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Scholes, Robert. Fabulation and Metafiction. Chicago: University of Illinois Press., 1979.

Shakespeare, William, and Sidney Lamb. Romeo & Juliet: Commentary, Complete Text, Glossary. Cliffs Notes, 1999.

Torrijos, María del Mar Ramón. "Bret Easton Ellis’s Controversial Fiction: Writing between High and Low Culture." (2012).

Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction – The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London, New York: Routledge, 1984.

Wolf, Werner, ed. The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, Attempts at Explanation. Studies in Intermediality, 2011.

Wolf, Werner. "Metareference across Media: The Concept, its Transmedial Potentials and Problems, Main Forms and Functions". Metareference across Media: Theory and Case Studies. Studies in Intermediality 4, eds. Werner Wolf, Katharina Bantleon, and Jeff Thoss. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009.