A Study On Metaflctional Narrative Strategies In The End Of The Road

John Barth is one of the most influential writers and pioneers of experimental novels inthe postmodernist literature. His works play an important role in the development of thepostmodernist literature. His fiction The End of the Road earns the praise of “the writer ofblack humor” and “the speculative writer” for him and it is considered as the most successfulnovel. The publication of the novel makes John Barth more well-known in the world.Metafictionists abandoned the traditional models and techniques of fiction. They laidemphasis on revealing the fictionality of fictions, blurring the boundaries between reality andfictionality. Barth’s works are famous for the complex structure, techniques.The End of theRoad is a typical metafiction. However, the analysis on metafiction mainly focuses on TheFloating Opera. The study about The End of the Road is not detailed and systematic. Thisthesis focuses on the narrative strategies of metafiction based on the detailed analysis of thetext and the achievements of the previous people, which is to illustrate the narrative strategiesin the novel.The thesis is divided into five parts. Chapter one is the introduction to John Barth and hisworks, The End of the Road and literature review of The End of the Road. Finally, it shows thesignificance of the thesis.Chapter two is the brief introduction to the background, definitions of metafiction andthe main writing strategies of metafiction used in the novels, including the usage of languagegames, parody and black humor.Chapter three is the main part of the thesis. It conducts the researches on the usage oflanguage games, parody and black humor in The End of the Road. In this novel, the authorpays attention to the language itself and language games. He is passionate in the creation oflanguage. The parody of philosophical text is used to mock the Existentialism andFreudianism which was in fashion in the1960s. The black humor of the main character andplot makes readers realize the theme via laughing. Its usage deepens the meditation for thereaders.Chapter four explores the significance of using metafiction. The usage of metafictionlights the fire of hope again while the novel is announced to be dead. The usage of metafictionnot only makes the people rethink the relationship between novel and reality, but also changethe relationship between readers and authors. The significance of metafiction lies in the newrelationship between novel and reality, readers and authorsChapter five is the conclusion. The thesis concludes that Barth employs three mainnarrative strategies in The End of the Road to express the metafictional features. At the same time it proves John Barth is a typical metafictionalist with and special view in realityand literature. He has made a great contribution to the development of metafiction andpostmodernist literature.