Creativity knows no bounds; many writers have pushed the limits in terms of writing fiction by offering readers an almost surreal experience in which they can follow someone who knows they’re part of a fictional work. This type of writing is known as metafiction.
Metafiction offers an unconventional reading experience. The narrator or characters are self-aware and often add their own commentary into the text, creating a fictional piece that makes its observation on fiction, too! This can be found in short stories, novels, plays, film, television, and even video games.
What Is Metafiction?
The prefix “meta” means “about,” so one easy way of understanding the term is that metafiction is fiction written “about” fiction.
Whereas most fiction has the goal of getting the reader “lost” in the story, in metafiction it’s quite the opposite: the writer regularly brings the reader back to the consciousness that indeed, what he is reading is simply the work of someone’s imagination.
Metafiction most likely had its roots in the modernist way of questioning the idea of reality and consciousness.
Because postmodern fiction tends to use these types of exploration, it can be mistakenly interchanged with metafiction. But the truth is that metafiction is not exactly the main mode of postmodern fiction, and may exist even in classical works.
What Is the Purpose of Metafiction?
Writers use metafiction for the following reasons:
- to show the dual reality of the novel’s fictional world and the real world;
- to parody conventions in literature genres;
- to thwart reader expectations;
- to unveil truths;
- to explore different facets of the human condition
A lot of the time, postmodernist fiction uses metafiction to give commentary on the characters’ self-contained world.
Common Characteristics of Metafiction
You can usually identify metafiction in a novel when you find the following characteristics:
- No boundary between reader and writer: Metafiction is known for directly addressing the reader and questioning the story that the narrator is telling. This characteristic is also known as “breaking the fourth wall.”
- Self-consciousness: Metafiction involves authors reflecting on their creative process, turning the reader’s attention away from the tale and urging them to analyze the content of the story instead.
- Unconventional and experimental: Most metafiction combines different narrative techniques, making for a narrative that isn’t quite ordinary. It might also explore the different ways the narrator can relate to the fictional characters.
10 Metafiction Examples in Literature
Throughout the centuries, writers have written metafictional works, such as the following:
1. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Published in 1387, this classic is an anthology of interrelated stories that make a parody of the conventional facets of fiction.
The author effectively combines literary devices and writing styles to create this collection of tales within an overarching story. He’s fond of breaking the fourth barrier between fictional characters and the readers by addressing the readers directly. He even goes so far as to apologize if he offends them!
2. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Right from the prologue, Miguel de Cervantes comments on the way he wrote the book, and encourages his readers to come to their own conclusion about the contents.
Then the novel proceeds to tell about the adventures of Don Quixote, the protagonist who has gone crazy from too much reading of romantic stories on chivalry.
3. Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth
This fourth novel by the author is an example of postmodernist metafiction, with a few fictional disclaimers at the start and the end, claiming that the author did not write the story himself but that it was given to him, either on a tape or by a computer.
4. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
This novel tells about the love affair that a Victorian era gentleman has with a governess. The narrator ends up part of the story, and also shows different possible endings. This book is considered a historiographic metafiction work.
5. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The author, as the narrator, includes himself as a character in this novel, which features a protagonist that has no control over being thrown back and forth between the past and present—a picture of the senselessness of war.
6. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
In this science fiction novel, the characters refer to a book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. All throughout the story, the author reminds the audience that they’re reading a fictional work.
7. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
This epitome of postermodern literature uses a complex structure to deal with issues such as science, culture, profanity, literary propriety, and social science.
Through this work, Pynchon looks at how history is created and how it affects the individual and society.
8. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Speculative fiction master storyteller Margaret Atwood is best known for this work, which tells about Offred, a woman who has been captured, among others, by a totalitarian regime.
The author uses the first-person POV in telling the story, and in the epilogue, the characters talk about “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
9. The Monster at the End of this Book (Sesame Street)
This engaging children’s book employs principles of metafiction. It opens to the Sesame Street character Grover reading the title of the book, and getting increasingly afraid about meeting the monster who would be found at the end. At each turn of the page, Grover becomes more scared, begging the reader to stop.
At one point he even builds a barrier to keep the pages from getting turned! And then, when you reach the end of the book, Grover finds out that the monster it had been referring to was himself all along!
10. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
This novel tells the story of one of the characters in another fictional work, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. After going through much hardship, Jane Eyre marries her employer Edward Rochester, and finds something strange in the attic. She later learns that the ungodly noises are made by a madwoman locked up in the attic—who turns out to be Edward’s wife!
In Wide Sargasso Sea, the author imagines and writes from the perspective of that madwoman, making it a commentary on Jane Eyre, its characters, and even on the author of the first novel herself.
Reading Metafiction
As you can see from the examples above, metafiction can come in many different forms: it could be a story where the narrator speaks directly to the readers, a story within a story, or even a fictional account that serves as a commentary on another fictional work.
If you haven’t read any metafiction work, give some of the books in this list a try. We trust you will enjoy them!
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
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Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
