ENGL 91C Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Metafiction, Plot Twist
Document Summary
A style of prose narrative that draws attention to the fictitiousness or literariness of the work. Disrupts the reader"s willing suspension of disbelief and thus destabilizes the relationship between reader, the work of fiction, and the real world. While metafictional works may abide by realist conventions (and realist works may include metafictional elements), metafiction is often an anti-realist gesture. O"brien"s "happening truth" vs. "story truth": "a thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth". Interiority: a character"s thoughts, feelings, impressions, and memories - creates an illusion of psychological depth; conveyed by a first-person narrator or a third-person a narrator with access to the character"s headspace. Exteriority: objective descriptions of a character"s action, speech, and gestures - helps establish interiority through implication. The physical, intellectual, and/or spiritual journey a character undergoes in the course of a narrative.
