This thesis examines Darren Aronofsky's 2014 film Noah as a pattern for metafictionalizing narratives into thinking stories as we confront the uncertainty and challenges of the Anthropocene. While Ecocriticism has sought for the development and promotion of nature writing and environmentally oriented poetry and fiction- "new stories" that will shape a stronger environmental ethic"”it has placed too much responsibility for the environmental imagination on what we read rather than on the more important question of how we read. My argument addresses the readerly responsibilities that, if met, have the power to transform old stories and old habits of mind into environmentally relevant attitudes and behaviors. The search for new stories, in other words, although important, has tended to understate the responsibility of the reader to make stories new and to read them as cosmologies that pertain to our contemporary situation. What is needed are new ways to read and engage with stories, new reading methods to metaphorize narratives themselves, making them metafictional even when they are not. Now, in an age of climate change and environmental degradation, it is time for us to think about stories in relation to our role as protagonists in the story of the earth, imagining new possibilities and actively accepting our role of writing our story anew. I hope to demonstrate that this type of aggressive reading of even popular culture (often regarded as mainstream, or "œthoughtless" stories) can mine the necessary insights to reexamine humanity's relationship with the earth and its inhabitants.

This thesis examines the way in which the fictional biographies of Virginia Woolf, Orlando and Flush, prefigure central tenets of postmodern fiction. To demonstrate the postmodern elements present in Orlando and Flush, this thesis focuses on how the fictional biographies exhibit three postmodern characteristics: concern for historiography, extensive use of parody, and the denaturalization of cultural assumptions. Born from Woolf’s desire to revolutionize biography by incorporating elements of fiction alongside historical fact, these two novels parallel later works of historiographic metafiction in several key respects. Woolf’s extensive use of parody in Orlando and Flush prefigures how postmodern parody foregrounds the many ways in which all narratives are inherently constructions. Woolf also expresses a postmodern attitude by denaturalizing cultural assumptions about sexual difference and social class. When taken together, these three traits reveal how Orlando and Flush possess an ontological philosophy indicative of postmodern literature.

John Fowles¡¦s The Magus, as a metafiction, is designed to criticize the fictional writing in the context of inter-reflexive narrative. More than displaying his innovative writing style, Fowles extends the possibility of fictional writing with the application of spiral structure, allegorical rhetoric and the abundant mythological elements in this book. This thesis sets out to analyze the mirror-text and discuss how such a text reflects the symbolical meaning carried by the mythological symbols within the narrative, which, taken together, reinforce the significance of the hero¡¦s adventurous journey¡Xthe journey as a process of the development of the hero¡¦s personality. To elaborate the narrative strategy of this novel, in the first chapter, I shall discuss the function of the mirror-text and its relation with the primary text. Applying Mieke Bal¡¦s narratological theory to enhance my understanding of the mirror-text, I would bring forth the cumulative effect of the mirror-text. The arrangement of the mirror-text aims to decompose the text by projecting the deficiencies in the primary text. In Chapter Two, I shall, on the one hand, decompose the text by using Vladimir Propp¡¦s method of morphology. On the other hand, after introducing Joseph Campbell¡¦s analysis of mythology, I would discuss the mode and significance of the heroic journey in detail and explore how the motif of mythology structures the narrative of The Magus. After examining the novel both structurally and semantically, in the final part, I would put emphasis on the psychological condition of the hero. Jungian psychological study, which encompasses mythic symbols, would be adapted for illuminating the development of the hero¡¦s personality. The personal development is taken as an analogy in the novel. From the growth of an I-narrator, Fowles takes the novel as not only an aesthetic discourse with which he scrutinizes the reality he perceives but also a mirror upon which the author and the readers are allowed to project their ¡§lack¡¨ onto the ¡§maternal textual body.¡¨ Like the symbolic rebirth of a hero, the author and the text are reborn from the readers¡¦ interpretations.

The paper focuses on the collision of high and popular culture in Robert Coover’s collection of short stories “Pricksongs and Descants”. The methods chosen for the study are close reading and textual analysis by interpreting every short story, defining its genre, noticing the features of high and popular culture and ways of presenting them, grasping the hot point where high and popular cultures collide, analyzing the aim and message of the collision. The paper emphasizes the blend of high-popular culture collision and discloses it with the help of postmodernism, high and popular culture instances, intertextuality, metafiction and genres transformation techniques through the themes of sexuality, violence and television. The research has revealed the message of the author hidden in the collision of high and low culture to satirize the image of 1960s America society and help the readers better understand the present reality. / Šio darbo tikslas yra atskleisti aukštosios ir populiariosios kultūrų sankirtą amerikiečių rašytojo Roberto Coover’io apsakymų rinkinyje ,,Raudos ir dainos” (1969) remiantis postmodernizmo literatūros ypatumais: naujų formų ieškojimu, ,,žaidimu” su jomis, populiariosios kultūros pabrėžimu, aukštosios ir žemosios kultūrų suliejimu, ironija, juoduoju jumoru, absurdo fantazija. Aptariami pagrindiniai postmodernistinės visuomenės bruožai – žmonių susvetimėjimas, įsiliejimas į masės visuomenę, vertybių praradimas, grožio kultas ir seksualumo garbinimas, dieviškųjų absoliutų atmetimas, smurto ir nepagarbaus elgesio protrūkiai, keiksmažodžiais užteršta žmonių kalba. Šie bruožai analizuojami apsakymų rinkinyje “Raudos ir dainos”, nes jų pagalba ir yra atskleidžiama anksčiau minėtųjų kultūrų sankirta. Prie šios sankirtos atskleidimo prisideda ir intertekstualumo, metafikcijos ir žanrų (pasakų, religinių istorijų, įprastų, gerai žinomų kasdienių įvykių) transformavimo pavyzdžiai. Pagrindiniai darbo metodai yra nuodugnus skaitymas, kiekvieno apsakymo analizavimas ir interpretavimas, bandant apibrėžti jo žanrą, pastebint aukštosios ir populiariosios kultūrų atvejus ir jų pateikimo būdus, užčiuopiant šių dviejų kultūrų susikirtimo tašką ir analizuojant toje sankirtoje paslėptą autoriaus mintį. Darbe atskleidžiama pagrindinė apsakymų rinkinio mintis – nepasitenkinimas šiuolaikine Amerikos visuomene. Remiantis apsakymų rinkinio analize, bandoma parodyti, jog visuomenė yra nykimo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

This dissertation argues that a number of works of Canadian fiction usually designated as modernist fit more properly into the category of “late modernism”: a category that has only recently begun to emerge as a bridge between post-war modernism and emergent postmodernism. These works are aligned by their use of abstract, absurdist, or surrealist narrative structures and consequently by their refusal to adhere to conventional strictures of social realism. Because of this refusal, literary critics have identified the late-modernist emphasis on narrative form as necessarily ahistorical or apolitical. Conversely, I argue, these works are socially and politically engaged with the historical contexts and material conditions of their inception, composition, and consequent reception. I argue herein that the works of Sheila Watson, Elizabeth Smart, Malcolm Lowry, and John Glassco tend towards non-representational narrative forms, and in doing so, they engage in modes of cultural critique. These critiques are focused by a negotiation of what has been multiply identified as a “contradiction” in modernist art: while on the one hand the texts break with traditional forms of social-realist narrative out of a need to find new forms of expression in an effort to rebel against conservative, bourgeois sensibilities, on the other hand they are always produced from within the self-same socio-political economy that they critique. Whether this position is identified as a “modernist double bind” (following Willmott) or a “central paradox” of modernism (following Eysteinsson), I have argued that each author negotiates these internal contradictions through the integration of autobiographical material into their writing. In reading these works as part of a unified late-modernist narrative tradition, this dissertation aims to destabilize critical and popular understandings of mid-century Canadian prose and argue for an alternate reading of artistic interpretation of the twentieth-century Canadian condition. Such a reading challenges current canon formation because it destabilizes traditional critical accounts of these texts as instances of eccentric expression or singular moments of genius. Instead, we are asked to consider seriously the tendency for play with subjectivity and autobiographical material as an interpretive strategy to express the mid-century, post-war condition.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores how Justin Cartwright’s perspective on Englishness, as a South Africanborn writer living and writing in England, is played out in his novels. Four of Cartwright’s novels with English settings are analysed: In Every Face I Meet (1995), The Promise of Happiness (2004), To Heaven by Water (2009) and Other People’s Money (2011). Cartwright’s position as a self-conscious observer of English life is revealed as eliciting a nuanced critique of Englishness. It is argued that Cartwright adopts something of an anthropological approach towards his English subjects, and that this troubles the traditional gaze of the Western anthropologist upon the “other”. At the same time, his protagonists are represented with humane sympathy, though this is often tempered with irony. Drawing on Paul Gilroy’s ideas about race and multiculture in England and Robert J.C. Young’s The Idea of English Ethnicity, this thesis discusses Cartwright’s presentation of Englishness as both potentially inclusive and exclusive. Cartwright also sets England against America, and more significantly, against Africa. Cartwright’s portrayal of Africa is shown to reveal his somewhat ambivalent attitude towards his birthplace. Throughout the thesis, Cartwright’s novels are discussed with an awareness of the influence that the social philosopher Isaiah Berlin has had on the author, particularly with regard to his critique of idealism and his espousal of value pluralism and liberal humanism. Yet it is also suggested that Cartwright’s liberal humanism may be intertwined with his complex and ambivalent attitude towards Africa. Moreover, the ironic tone and postmodern, metafictional elements of these novels perform Cartwright’s belief in value pluralism in interesting ways. The relationship between literature, art and national fictions is furthermore discussed, in conversation with Benedict Anderson’s ideas about nationalism. This thesis provides a close-reading of the works of this under-researched author and examines the complexity of his “estranged” position towards Englishness. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis verken hoe Justin Cartwright, Suid-Afrikaans gebore skrywer woonagtig in Engeland, se die siening van Engelsheid (Englishness) in sy romans weerspieël word. Vier van Cartwright se romans met ‘n Engelse agtergrond word ontleed: In Every Face I Meet (1995), The Promise of Happiness (2004), To Heaven by Water (2009) en Other People’s Money (2011). Dit word onthul hoe Cartwright se posisie as self-bewuste waarnemer van Engelse lewe hom staat te stel om ‘n genuanseerde critique van Engelsheid te lewer. Daar word aangevoer dat Cartwright ‘n ietwat antropologiese benadering tot sy Engelse onderwerpe inneem en dat dit die tradisionele siening van die Westerse antropoloog van die “ander” ondergrawe. Terselfdertyd bied hy sy protagoniste met menslike erbarming aan, hoewel dit dikwels met ironie getemper word. Deur gebruik te maak van Paul Gilroy se opvattings oor ras en multikultuur in Engeland en Robert J.C. Young se The Idea of English Ethnicity, bespreek hierdie tesis hoe Cartwright Engelsheid voorstel as sowel potensieel inklusief as eksklusief. Cartwright stel ook Engeland teenoor Amerika, en meer belangwekkend, ook teenoor Afrika. Daar word aangetoon dat Cartwright se uitbeelding van Afrika sy nogal ambivalente houding teenoor sy geboorteplek verraai. Regdeur die tesis word Cartwright se romans bespreek met in agneming van die invloed van die sosiale filosoof Isaiah Berlin op die skrywer, veral ten op sigte van sy critique van idealisme en sy omhelsing van waardepluralisme en liberale humanisme. Tog word daar ook gesuggereer dat Cartwright se liberale humanisme verweef mag wees met sy verwikklede en ambivalente houding ten opsigte van Afrika. Daarbenewens is die ironiese toon en postmoderne, metafiktiewe element van hierdie romans op interessante maniere ‘n bevestiging van Cartwright se onderskrywing van waardepluralisme. Vervolgens word die verhouding tussen literatuur, kuns en nasionale fiksies bespreek in samehang met Benedict Anderson se idees oor nasionalisme. Hierde tesis bied ‘n noukeurige ondersoek van die werke van hierdie onderverkende skrywer en ondersoek die kompleksiteit van sy “vervreemde” houding teenoor Engelsheid.

L’écrivain chinois Mo Yan a mis en scène dans son œuvre romanesque des avatars de l’auteur, identifiés à lui par le nom dans deux romans et par le rôle de créateur du récit dans plusieurs récits. Ces représentants ne sauraient être identifiés à l’auteur empirique, mais peuvent être interprétés à l’aune de ce que représente pour nous l’auteur, au sens large, ou dans une visée individuelle, lorsque nous analysons leur caractérisation en fonction d’autres textes, fictifs ou référentiels, construisant la figure biographique, théorique et fantasmatique de l’auteur. Outre qu’elle joue sur l’aporie de sa présence dans la fiction, cette représentation métafictionnelle a des fonctions diverses. Dans Le Pays de l’alcool, elle souligne l’allégorie tout en déjouant la censure ; dans La Dure Loi du karma, elle brosse un portrait comique du romancier, reflétant ses différents rôles pour le lecteur et la société. La suite de l’étude porte sur des narrateurs révélant un statut de créateur du récit, de sorte qu’ils provoquent une distanciation et un doute sur leur situation diégétique, en les associant à une tendance métafictionnelle présente dans l’œuvre de Mo Yan depuis son premier roman long, Le Clan du sorgho rouge, où elle est l’effet d’un narrateur omniscient et présent dans l’univers de la fiction. Ces figures d’autorité thématisent l’imagination à l’œuvre, tout en signalant l’altérité de la figure de l’auteur que le lecteur infère de ses indices supposés. Elles représentent l’auteur en une logique non référentielle, comme produit d’un ensemble mouvant d’hypothèses, issues d’une interprétation des récits comme éléments constitutifs de l’œuvre. / In his fictional works, Chinese novelist Mo Yan created avatars of the author, who are either identified by their name such as the characters Mo Yan in The Republic of Wine and in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out or by a creative role they reveal, in other narratives. Both doubles, Mo Yan’s fictional homonyms, cannot be considered as the empirical author, and yet may be interpreted in the light of what the author means to us, whether in a broad or individual sense, when their characteristics are confronted with the biographical, theoretical and fantasmatic figure of Mo Yan which other texts create. Drawing attention to the aporetical presence of the author in a universe he created, metafictional author representations have various functions. In The Republic of Wine, it enlights the allegorical value of the novel and, to the real author, is a means to deter censorship. In Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, Mo Yan is a parody of a novelist, where the role he plays for the reader and in society appear in a nutshell. Next, the sign of the author is to be extended to other narrators who reveal, more or less explicitly, that they create the narrative, thus inducing readers to suspend belief and reconsider their diegetic posture. Beginning with his first long novel Red Sorghum, metafiction has been an obsessive tendency in Mo Yan’s novels, making imagination a theme of the novel while suggesting the figure of the author a reader infers from the text is but a shifting body of hypotheses, which envision narratives a part of the whole works that make the author.

L’objectif de ce travail est de presenter une analyse du roman Um beijo de colombina, de l’auteur brésilienne, Adriana Lisboa. Il a l’intention de réfléchir sur le deux types de narrateurs qu’il ya dans le roman: em première et en deuxième personne. Il va analyser sur la possibilité de ce romain être une metafiction, pour ça, il va remarquer les traces au long de l’hitoire que sont en dialogue avec cette hypotèse. Finalement, il va etudier les relations d’intertextualité qu’il y a dans l’oeuvre de Lisboa et les poèmes de Manuel Bandeira, une fois que celui sont dans le romain du debut à la fin. Il utilisera pour cette recherche quelques studieux qui parlent sur les narrateurs contemporain comme Jaime Ginzburg, Ronaldo Costa Fernandes et Regina Dalcastagnè; Les chercheur qui parlent de la narrative metafictional comme Gustavo Bernardo et les personne qui montrent les chemin pour refléchir sur l’intertextualité, comme, Mikhail Bakhtin et Julia Kristeva. / O presente trabalho tem por objetivo realizar uma análise do livro Um beijo de colombina, da escritora brasileira Adriana Lisboa. O romance em questão apresenta uma gama de possibilidades interpretativas, uma vez que, em sua construção, mostram-se mecanismos literários variados. O primeiro deles se compõe de dois narradores que se contradizem em suas histórias. Além disso, são inúmeras as reflexões sobre o fazer literário, sobre a construção de personagens e sobre a leitura e a literatura de uma forma geral. Um outro recurso interessante centra-se no fato de o livro ter sido escrito a partir dos poemas de Manuel Bandeira. Nesta pesquisa, pretende-se refletir sobre os dois tipos de narração que aparecem no romance: em primeira e em terceira pessoa. Visa-se também discutir sobre a temática da metaficção; para tanto, serão destacadas as marcas metaficcionais ao longo do enredo do romance. Por fim, estudar-se-ão as relações intertextuais estabelecidas entre a obra de Lisboa e os poemas de Manuel Bandeira, uma vez que perpassam o texto do começo ao fim. Serão utilizados estudiosos que abordam a questão dos narradores contemporâneos, como Jaime Ginzburg, Ronaldo Costa Fernandes e Regina Dalcastagnè; pesquisadores que discutem a narrativa metaficcional, como Gustavo Bernardo e que mostram caminhos para a reflexão sobre a intertextualidade, como Mikhail Bakhtin e Julia Kristeva.

Este trabalho se propõe a analisar diferentes ocorrências do fenômeno da metaficção presentes nas obras da escritora Adriana Lisboa e estabelecer conexões existentes entre o fenômeno e o drama da consciência humana, constatando que os impasses derivados da busca de uma identidade expõe a arte a uma representação irônica da realidade. Nesse sentido, analisamos as obras Sinfonia em branco, romance publicado em 2001, Um beijo de colombina, de 2003 e Rakushisha de 2007, visando a interpretação e o estudo do processo de construção dos romances, sobretudo, na sua relação entre ficção, realidade, identidade, dúvida e silêncio. A partir destas perspectivas, verificamos que todas as obras guardam em si uma multiplicidade de olhares e vozes a retratar, nas pequenas coisas do cotidiano, um universo de poesia a refletir tanto a escrita quanto a nossa condição humana / This work intends to analyze different occurrences of the phenomenon of metafiction present in the writings of writer Adriana Lisboa and establish connections existing between the phenomenon and the drama of human consciousness, noting that deadlocks derived search of an identity exposes the art of ironic representation reality. Accordingly, we analyze the works Sinfonia em branco, novel published in 2001, Um beijo de colombina in 2003, Rakushisha in 2007, so the interpretation and study of the construction of the novels, especially in its relationship between fiction, reality, identity , doubt and silence. From these perspectives, we see that all works itself keep a multiplicity of perspectives and voices to portray, in the little things of everyday life, a universe of poetry to reflect both the written and the human condition

Esta dissertação investiga de que maneiras a representação do sujeito canadense pode ser encontrada em dois romances representativos da literatura canadense contemporânea: Obasan, de Joy Kogawa, e Alias Grace, de Margaret Atwood. Esta investigação também demonstra que a busca pela definição da identidade canadense tem sido tema constante e relevante da cultura deste país. A indefinição quanto ao que significa ser canadense também tem permeado a literatura canadense ao longo dos séculos, notadamente desde o século XIX. A fim de observar a representação literária da busca pela definição da identidade canadense, esta investigação aborda os conceitos relativos à representação de grupos subalternos tradicionalmente silenciados. A análise comparativa dos romances citados contempla a relação entre memória e trauma autobiográficos, assim como as semelhanças narrativas entre ficção e história. Esta investigação também verifica de que maneiras a literatura pós-moderna emprega documentação oficial, relatos históricos e dados (auto) biográficos a serviço da reescrita da história através da metaficção historiográfica / This dissertation investigates the ways through which the representation of the Canadian subject might be observed in two representative novels of contemporary Canadian literature: Obasan, by Joy Kogawa, and Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood. This investigation also demonstrates that the search for the definition of a specific Canadian identity has been a constant and relevant theme to the countrys culture. The lack of definition concerning the meaning of being Canadian has also permeated Canadian Literature throughout the centuries, most notably since the XIX century. In order to observe the literary representation of the Canadian search for identity, this investigation makes use of the concepts related to the representation of traditionally silenced subaltern groups. The comparative analysis of the abovementioned novels contemplates the relationship between autobiographical memory and trauma, as well as the narrative similarities between fiction and history. This investigation also verifies the ways postmodern literature employs official documentation, historical accounts and (auto) biographical information in the rewriting of history through historiographic metafiction