An Analysis Of Metafictional Techniques In The Public Burning

In the past fifty years, Metafiction is one of the most noticeable fictional forms whose outstanding feature is that writers reflect on fiction creation by means of writing. That is the reason why Metafiction is interpreted as"fiction about fiction". Even so, the single term can not mirror the comprehensive connotation or entire artistic characteristics. Therefore, as a kind of fictional mode, Metafiction is worthy of studying by implying it in a certain literary creation. The Public Burning is exactly the right literary creation and this thesis is exactly one of such studies.This thesis consists of introduction, body and conclusion.The first part introduces Robert Coover briefly, the current status of the research about The Public Burning home and aboard as well as the significance of analyzing its usage of metafitional techniques.The body contains the following four chapters:ChapterⅠfunctions as theoretical basis, providing the background information about Metafiction as a principle of literary creation, involving its origin, definition, characteristics and techniques. Its appearance results from several factors. As for its definition, this thesis presents four different opinions which unanimously hold that Metafiction is a kind of fiction openly commenting on its fictional status. It deals, most the time, playfully and self-referentially, with the writing process or its conventions. It has some basic characteristics: covering the distinction between art and reality; exaggerating fictional dialogue potential; overlapping fiction creation and criticism; shortening the distance among writer and readers and characters. In order to fully expose such features, metafictionists usually resort to some writing techniques and the utilization of parody, pastiche and montage would be discussed in detail in this current thesis.ChapterⅡillustrates the employment of parody and Coover deconstructs the"truth"of official historical writing by parodying Richard Nixon; Horatio Alger and the Rosenberg Case. The first section of this chapter mainly exposes the parallels between the historical text and its fictional counterpart by elaborating the scene on Times Square and Nixon's speech. His pants-down scene obviously refers to Watergate. Many of his"code words"echo directly from the famous televised address when the actual Nixon defended himself against a patch of accusations that he embezzled a campaign fund for personal purposes. The second section talks about the parody of Horatio Alger who is well known for his popular hero Ragged Dick. It is this particular story that The Pubic Burning alternatively rewrites while telling its own. What interests the author in the aspect of this elaborated appropriation lies in reconstructing the expansion of the Alger"micro-narrative", meaning how it unfolds to grow into a kind of"macro-narrative"through a revisionary process involving incessant rereading and rewriting and during such process, how the historical fictionality is unmasked. The last section of this chapter analyzes the parody of the Rosenberg case. Coover shifts the execution field to New York Times Square which has being regarded as the embodiment of Western essence. That hints Coover's unwilling to bury history and further, he represents it as a farce. Logically, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg should be the main roles in the Rosenberg case; however, they are kept at a cool distance away from readers and granted the least and the most ambiguous voices. In the assortment of political characters section, Uncle Sam and Phantom are observed in a short distance.ChapterⅢturns attention to the utilization of pastiche. It is reasonable to say that The Public Burning is a pastiched work with numerous proper nouns; different genres and typographies involved. Coover uses actual names rather liberally which carry considerable resonance, making readers quest what ontological weight they take on in the text and when they are released from the actual world and transported into a quite nonrealistic text. According to Saul Kripke's opinion of a"rigid designator"which means a name that"in every possible world""designates the same object", Coover's Nixon is the actual one for the name is a rigid designator. However, readers find themselves resisting Coover's picture of Nixon as a real one for it fails to match up with information from their own actual experience. On the other hand, in order to read the novel, to understand and apprehend it, to touch its tremendous emotional impact, readers have to assume the fictionalized character of Nixon as real. Thus, readers are caught in the plight with the mere stick: neither can they say that Coover's Nixon is an actual Nixon nor that he is not a real one. To further make the employment of pastiche remarkable, the author endows the Nixon figure with a pastiche of many roles. Initially, Nixon is Coover's secret sharer. Richard Nixon functions as an agent of this authorial strategy, utilizing his status as vice president to strive to disturb Uncle Sam's story about the Rosenbergs. Secondly, Nixon is a divided and isolated character. Last but not least, Nixon is an impotent mediator. But unfortunately, his role as a mediator is a failure. From a macroscopic view, the whole novel is pieced up by four narrative chapters, three intermezzos in different genres as well as a prologue and epilogue with symbolic meaning. These four chapters contain twenty-eight episodes alternatively narrated by Robert Coover and his part-time narrator, Richard Nixon. The three intermezzos are presented in free verse, dramatic dialogue and opera in sequence. Finally, the motley of various typographies are presented to make readers catch the sense of disorder and random implied in the whole text.ChapterⅣtries to analyze the application of montage. According to Coover's structural concept, The Public Burning is a three-ring circus, the ring of Richard Nixon; the Rosenbergs and Uncle Sam. After the elaborate discussion of three rings respectively, this section turns to the merge of them. Metaphorical montage usually foregrounds some similar features among different objects to make readers to associate with others and taste authors'moral hints as well as emotional colors."House of Wax"is such an episode in The Public Burning, which serves as a surreal, compressed emblem of the novel as a whole and illustrates how profound performance is rooted in American society. If the episode is a farce, it only reflects a larger farce that is The Public Burning itself—a sad, tragic farce to be sure.The final part is conclusion, summing up the foregoing discussion. By parody, pastiche and montage, Coover skillfully demonstrates a miniature of American society, motivating readers to ponder the hints between lines. The author tends to, with The Public Burning as an example, analyze how metafictional techniques endow the text profound implication and unique artistic charm.