Critics like Waugh assert that by calling the reader’s attention to novelistic frames, metafiction “lays bare the conventions of realism” and is a way of “tracing the outline of the frame through which we look at [fiction]” (18, 27). To be sure, metafiction uses the literary devices of parody and irony to allow the reader to recognise and critique literary or social conventions. However, just as non-metafictional texts naturalise the literary frames and conventions they use, some critics have noticed that metafiction also “creates a new illusion, even as it claims to denounce the one on which the ‘traditional realistic’ novel is based” (Hutcheon, Narcissistic Narrative 45). This illusion is one that assumes that in a metafictional text, “frame” and “frame-break” (Waugh 142), or convention and the breaking of convention, are clearly delineated. This would imply that metafiction becomes an almost transparent medium through which we can examine convention and fiction. However, this argument is unpersuasive as metafictional texts are ultimately still composed of language, and have their own conventions such as self-reflexivity and parody, which may or may not be commented upon in these texts. To expose the frames of metafiction, it is clear that a “metalanguage” is required, a “language that functions as a signifier” (Waugh 4) to the language of metafiction. This is what I call meta-metafiction.
Most commentators have stopped short at identifying meta-metafiction as a distinct mode of writing from metafiction. The illusion of metafiction’s transparency, coupled with the anxiety that recursion in fiction would lead to an “uncontrolled” proliferation of images without an “outer frame” to prevent the text from “[breaking] down into rando...
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...r are self-reflexive of themselves as particular fictional texts and analyse the movement between the different frames of reference as facilitated by parody and irony. Then, I will discuss their self-reflexivity in relation to fiction in general, and analyse the ways in which they facilitate and represent the production of textual meaning. Lastly, I will explore how these texts are self-reflexive of their existence as systems within the system of language, as well as why they are not infinitely regressive despite their increasingly “meta” level of commentary. To conclude, I will address the tension between the potentialities and limitations of all “meta” fictions and texts that belong to the system of language. To be sure, my paper is also subject to these same limitations, but in the absence of a better way of communicating these ideas, these words will have to do.
Author: Walter Benn Michaels is the chair of the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago teaching literary theory, and American literature. Michaels has also has multiple essays and books published such as Against Theory, The shape of the Signifier, and Diversity's False Solace
The films Young Frankenstein and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest can be viewed as a critical analysis of society’s issues and dysfunctions in the form of satire and parody using humor. While Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cinematic version of the gothic novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, uses parody in the form of Horatian satire, which is achieved through gentle ridicule and using a tone that is indulgent, tolerant, amused and witty. The film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel, uses a form of satire called Juvenalian satire which is demonstrated in the form of attacks on vice and error with contempt and indignation. Horatian satire will produce a humor response from the reader instead of anger or indignation as Juvenalian satire. Juvenalian satire, in its realism and its harshness, is in strong contrast to Horatian satire (Kent and Drury).
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Metafiction, loosely defined as fiction about fiction, provides an intriguing perspective on literature. J.M. Coetzee’s novel Foe and Margaret Atwood’s short story “Happy Endings” are able to provide a commentary on fiction writing while still retaining their own identities. Both authors offer criticism of fiction writing as connected to gender issues, societal expectations, and the process and components of fiction writing itself.
In a novel where everything is turned upside down and every character plays a role they probably shouldn’t, Nelly Dean’s role is the most ambiguous. As both Lockwood’s and the reader’s narrator, Nelly plays the role of the storyteller. Yet at the same time, Nelly is also a character in the story that she tells, occupying a vast array of roles. As a character within her own tale, Nelly attempts to manipulate the actions of her fellow characters. The best way for the reader to understand both Nelly’s role in the novel and her manipulative actions is to see Nelly as being representative of the author. Authors occupy roles that are similarly as ambiguous as Nelly’s role, acting as both writers of and characters in their own stories, often unwittingly writing aspects of themselves into a large variety of roles within their own novels. Furthermore, Nelly’s manipulative actions and biases are analogous to an author’s exertions to move the narrative in accordance with her artistic vision. The multiplicity and ambiguity of Nelly’s roles as well as Nelly’s clearly manipulative maneuvers to alter the plot ultimately implicate Nelly in the meta-fictional role of representing the author.
Deep-seated in these practices is added universal investigative and enquiring of acquainted conflicts between philosophy and the art of speaking and/or effective writing. Most often we see the figurative and rhetorical elements of a text as purely complementary and marginal to the basic reasoning of its debate, closer exploration often exposes that metaphor and rhetoric play an important role in the readers understanding of a piece of literary art. Usually the figural and metaphorical foundations strongly back or it can destabilize the reasoning of the texts. Deconstruction however does not indicate that all works are meaningless, but rather that they are spilling over with numerous and sometimes contradictory meanings. Derrida, having his roots in philosophy brings up the question, “what is the meaning of the meaning?”
Primarily used in satire is the literary device, irony, which is often displayed in both Swift’s essay and Voltaire’s novella; it is used to convey the duplicity of certain ...
In Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa's sudden transformation into a cockroach is appalling to all that encounter him, but none attempt to cure him of his affliction. The acceptance of his condition by Gregor and those around him highlights the underlying existentialist and absurdist perspective within the characters' attempt to come to terms with this circumstance. In the face of this dramatically absurd metamorphosis, Gregor does not blame a higher power, nor himself. As time wears on, he not only refrains from questioning his transformation but, at times lavishes in it and embraces it. His adjustment, and the adjustment of his family members, is not one of questioning his new life, but rather attempting to accept it for exactly what it is. In this way, Gregor and his family, particularly his father and sister, epitomize rationalization and freedom of choice in the face of absurdity.
The Metamorphosis is a among Franz Kafka’s famous stories. The story is about a haunted man who changed into an insect. The author has written the story based on various theories such as Marxism, existentialist and religious views. It is also a reflection of a hostile world with major themes being abandonment, self-alienation, and troubles relationship. It reveals people’s struggles while in the modern society where one is neglected in the time of need (Franz 8). The cultural and social setting of the story helps in supporting the major themes of the story. In as much as the story is a dramatic fiction, it is necessary to explore the interior monologue style in order to inform the audience what the protagonist is thinking.
In her article “The Rise of Fictionality”, literary critic Catherine Gallagher sources an etymological modification of the term ‘fiction’ with the rise of the novel in eighteenth-century England, where it emerged as “a supposition known to be at variance with fact, but conventionally accepted” (347). This occurred at a time when an extensive homology between the ubiquitous use of speculation in modern society and that of belief that operates in the novel arose. The former required “the kind of cognitive provisionality one practices in reading fiction” (347). Through its frequent application and encounter, the “readers developed the ability to tell [fiction] apart from both fact and (this is the key) deception” (338). Its “earlier meaning of “deceit, dissimulation, pretence” became obsolete” (338). This paper will identify the effect of the synchronously burgeoning field of psychology, and its use of speculations and hypotheses in studying the mind, on this modification of fiction’s meaning, and its consequent influence on the formal and the thematic structure of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. While it does not assume a unidirectional, causal alliance between the two, for the scope of this paper more attention will be paid on how the novel was configured in its scientific environment. This will be
Baker, Joseph E. “Irony in Fiction: ‘All the King’s Men.’” College English. Vol. 9. JSTOR.
Consequently, one can broach a series of querries about literature and the nature of literary theories : what is literature ? What is the novel and what is its function ? And finally, to what extent does criticism affect the quality of literature ? This welter of questions is nothing but the tip of the ice berg.
In conclusion, the use of elements of post modernism add a richness to literature and to the reading experience of the reader. Elements such as irony, magic realism and fragmentation cause people to think and make connections between the literature they are reading and how it relates to their own lives and the lives of the authors and other readers. The short stories studied in Ms. Reynolds 4U English class all contained many effective post modern elements that made students go more in depth with their reading and understanding of noted English literature. Perhaps some people were enlightened and adopted a postmodern view on the world.
The Metamorphosis is said to be one of Franz Kafka’s best works of literature. It shows the difficulties of living in a modern society and the struggle for acceptance of others in a time of need. From this story, one is able to infer that suffering is a necessary component of life. Gregor Samsa, the protagonist, was plagued with the metamorphosis that occurred one morning while he was awaking to prepare himself for work, as a traveling salesman. It is his metamorphosis that’ll set the ball rolling for post events that take place throughout the novel. In modern societies, one who usually feels an obligation to an unpleasant task and one who has others dependant on them often translate into the concept of them being those who have a sense of purpose. Hard work and self-sacrifice are two examples of what often enable us to have reverence and respect for people. It is almost as if it is a human need that makes one feel venerable. Part of Gregor’s reason for this need was because he needed to pay off his parent's debt; Kafka lets the readers understand this very quickly from the starting of the book. It is this need which was Gregor's motivation for pulling through a job which he despised so much. The metamorphosis has disabled him from fulfilling this particular need, and when he later hears of his family's decision that he is in no way a human being and must be gotten rid of, he realizes that this need will be unattainable forever, he then completely gives up on hope and dies. Kafka was able to portray these societal constructs of normality and venerability through his usages of motifs and centralized themes in order to dehumanize Gregor and force the rest of his family to undergo metamorphoses as well.
It is arguably in comedy that metatheatricality emerges most strongly, allowing a play to parody its own status as drama. But while The Merchant of Venice does employ metatheatrical elements, its classification as comedy is both problematic and unsettling. Ultimately, metatheatricality imbues the story with tragic thematic undertones, and consequently a comic structure gives way to the tragic . It is in considering the play as a written work that such undertones seem to emerge most strongly. Ironically, the accumulation of words—the physical construction of lines within scenes—reveals a pattern in which words themselves emerge as the tragic threat. Speech and language become a precari...