The Narrative Strategies in Albert Camus’ The Plague: A Metafictional Reading (Published)
The Plague by Albert Camus appears to be a biographical and traditional narrative, but in fact Camus employs various postmodern meta-fictional narrative strategies in his novel, such as overtly indicating the author’s presence in the work, occasionally the author intrudes directly to make comments, revealing its artificial fiction; changing narrative perspectives; parodying traditional diaries and heroic legends; intertextuality, collage, etc., which, to a certain extent, demonstrate the literary characteristics of postmodernism: indeterminacy, anti-center, everything is nothingness, etc., and also subvert its narrative conventions, breaking our readers’ expectations. This is to a certain extent the literary characteristics of postmodernism: anti-determinism, anti-center, everything is nothingness, etc. It also subverts its narrative rules and breaks our readers’ reading expectations. Camus’s use of meta-fictional narrative strategies reveals the postmodernism hidden in Camus, his view of the world of vanity, and the plight of contemporary human existence.
Citation: Xiaohong H. (2023) The Narrative Strategies in Albert Camus’ The Plague: A Metafictional Reading, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.11, No.2, pp.13-23
Keywords: Metafiction, Postmodernism, living dilemma, narration
Self-Reflective Writing- Meta-Fiction in Modern Arabic Literature: The Case of Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s “Delicious as a Separation (Published)
Meta-fiction refers to containing a critical text within a literary text, where the author introduces his personal vision of the writing process, the challenges of it, the tools, language, significations, and his relationship with reality. This study’s purpose is to explore the meta-fictional features in Ahlam Mosteghanemi “Delicious as a Separation”. Dealing with the comprehensive structure requires looking closely on three levels: Para-text, the main text, and the post text. This study will deal in: What is the role of modernism in spreading the phenomenon of meta- fiction in Arabic novels? What are the origins of meta-fiction in classical Arabic literature? What are the meta-fictional contents and significances in “Delicious as a Separation”? What are the different forms of meta-fiction in the novel, their functions and meanings? How is the meta-fictional content related to the feminist content in this work? The Results indicate that there are Meta fictional roots in classical literature, The self-conscious writing focuses on writing as a craft, as if the writer states “I write therefore I exist”.The purpose of the feminist meta-fictional is to draw attention to the issues associated with women’s writings.Meta-fiction has a therapy role for unspecified people So that the implied reader will be absent, and he tends to imagine and withdraw from reality, to confirm the adherence to this reality again.Meta-fiction reminds us that what we read is a fictional work, and confirm our reality and communicate with it.
Keywords: Arabic literature., Metafiction, Postmodernism, feminist literature