Miscellaneous Me
iambarr | November 23, 2009
Fear and Confusion
The defining characteristic of metafiction is that the text must self-consciously acknowledge the conventions involved in the fiction-writing process. In Lost in the Funhouse, John Barth not only calls attention to general literary conventions, he blatantly exposes them within his own story, often defining them immediately before defying them. Two of the [...]
iambarr | November 22, 2009
Barth – “Lost in the Funhouse”
The Assignment: Show how it operates as metafiction
The significant way Barth experiments with familiar narrative conventions to comment on the story-writing process.
How do-
-structure
-point of view
-style
operate as vehicles for what Barth wants to communicate about the world?
Do they comment on or critique aspects of contemporary culture?
Outline
I. Introduction
A. Define terms – metafiction [...]
iambarr | November 21, 2009
Outline
I. Introduction
A. Define terms – metafiction (fiction about fiction), postmodernism (a reworking or subversion of past conventions)
B. Present major arguments
C. State thesis – In writing a story about the writing of a story, Barth has created a classic work of metafiction.
II. Definition and defiance of convention – Barth defines many of the conventions of storytelling [...]
