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Metafiction - Coggle Diagram
Metafiction
Characteristics
Self-Referentiality
Breaking the Fourth Wall
Intertextuality
Narrative Intrusions
Unreliable Narrator
Parody & Satire
Functions and Purpose
Reader Awareness
Reality vs. Fiction
Philosophical & Theoretical Reflection
Playfulness & Experimentation
Definition
A type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction.
Blurs the boundary between reality and fiction.
Challenges traditional narrative techniques.
Historical Development
Early Metafictional Works
Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
Modernist Experimentation
James Joyce’s Ulysses
Postmodern Metafiction
John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
Contemporary Example
Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
A novel that directly engages the reader as the protagonist.
Consists of multiple unfinished stories, emphasizing the act of reading.
Challenges narrative structure and reader expectations.
Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves
A novel presented as a complex manuscript with footnotes, commentary, and multiple layers of narration.
Uses unconventional formatting, different fonts, and text distortions to engage the reader in a metafictional experience.
Blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction, making the reader a participant in the narrative.