Author(s)

Zhuo Liu ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Literature and Media, Xi'an Fanyi University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710105, China

Corresponding Author

Zhuo Liu

ABSTRACT

If on A Winter's Night a Traveler is the masterpiece of Italian writer Italo Calvino, which fully displays the characteristics of Metafiction in terms of narration, creative concept, and language. This novel that the narrative of the frame story is interlaced with ten embedded stories, deliberately interrupts the frame story and the embedded stories, breaks the continuity of structure, and completely destroys the integrity and closure of the plot, presenting a fragmentary feature in narration; this novel completely deconstructs creation, blurs the identity of the author and translator, involves the interaction between the (original) author, translator (forger), reader, and text, and occasionally comments on creation, deconstructing the concept and process of creation; this novel emphasizes reading, and the entire book revolves around the action of "reading" - "reading" is the only action of the male author "you", and the reading intentions and insights of various readers are quite different, and "reading" becomes the theme of the entire book; the novel engages in word play, and the embedded stories of different types, styles, backgrounds, and central events nest together, enhancing the reading effect through this fragmented collage and alternating between first-person and second-person narratives. In short, it is a classic example of Metafiction.

KEYWORDS

Interruption of the Narrative, Deconstruction of Creation, Emphasis on Reading, Words Play, If on A Winter's Night a Traveler

CITE THIS PAPER

Zhuo Liu, The Characteristics of Metafiction in If on A Winter's Night a Traveler. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2024) Vol. 7: 181-186. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2024.070629.

REFERENCES

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