Raja Abuali, Maedeh Zohriarab,
Volume 3, Issue 2 (10-2022)
Abstract
Metafiction is a style of writing novel and a phenomenon that emerges from postmodern narration, and one of its features is experimentation and breaking the familiar patterns of the novel and there is no doubt that metafiction is a kind of displacement in the narrative and it tends to produce a new vision and a new discourse that dominates over the discourse that is known to everyone, and on this basis, metafiction opens more than one subject for the recipient. It also means "the story about the story," that is, the novel's talk about itself or the description of its inner world, and it discusses its critical perceptions about the narration. However, the attempt of metafiction to break and destroy the old and build it again in a different framework, is what made it a postmodern technique. It is important to say that "William Gass" is one of the famous who used this term in his critical studies. The phenomenon of metafiction has attracted the attention of researchers, and they are applying it to a number of Arabic and other novels; hence the idea of this research came to apply the features and forms of metafiction in the novel "Azazel" by Youssef Zaidan, based on the descriptive-analytical style. Hence, the aim of this research is to explore metafictive forms by analyzing their metafictive text to show the writer's creativity. One of the results we have reached in this research is that the metafictive style in this novel is seen through aspects such as: reference to writing, the rebellion of characters against the author, breaking chronology and other metafictive techniques.
Maedeh Zohriarab, Reza Nazamian,
Volume 4, Issue 3 (10-2022)
Abstract
This article examines a postmodern mode of narration, i.e., meta-narrative, which was first employed by the American novelist William Gass. Metafiction is one of the most important features of postmodern literature, which is different from the traditional mode of narration, that draws on new techniques in writing fiction. This study attempts to examine the meta-adventure in Afaei Alnar by Jalal Barjas, in which metafiction techniques are used in order to new and wide spaces. Based on a descriptive-analytical approach, this study concludes that the narrative of Jalal Barjas often oscillates between fantasy and reality, between the past and the present. Among the most important metaphorical techniques he employes in the novel are the followings: evoking writing rituals, referring to the process of writing, embodying writing anxiety, fragmenting narration through creating multiple narrators (polyphony), and oscillating between illusory imagination and truth. These items draw the reader’s attention more to the narration process itself than to the subject of narration.
