From Reality To Textual Reality

Reality can be fictitious and fiction can be real.Based on the theoretical framework of possible worlds narrative theory,this thesis studies the isomorphism of reality’s fictionality and textual reality’s fictionality in The French Lieutenant’s Woman.In this postmodern metafiction,empirical reality is transplanted into historical reality writing which is then alternated with textual reality that is finally dissolved by fictional reference.This three-step procedure proves that reality(represented by the world in which the implied author resided)is produced in the same manner as textual reality(represented by the world in which the story’s characters inhabited)is constructed.The fictionality of reality is disclosed by the implied author through his quotation from historical materials;the stability of textual reality is destructed by the meta-narrator through his self-retraction.In the latter situation,the meta-narrator appears to have surpassed the story world and attained the status of an implied author with a reflexive perspective on the story world in which he was originally situated;whereas in the former situation,the implied author seems to have surpassed the real world and reached an additional surpassing and reflexive stage.However,both “disclosure” and “destruction” are of fictitious property.The fictionality of reality lies not only in the fictional activity during historical reality writing that is immediately “disclosed” by the implied author,but also in the fictitious nature of this act of “disclosure” itself: References to historical documents by the implied author is for the purpose of constructing a story world that is ultimately for“being destructed”.This second-order “serving for”(or “purpose”)is what the term“deconstruction” connotes: it is not just “destruction”;there must be an infix “con”embedded in the word destruction.In this cycle of establishment and destruction,the fictitious character of textual reality is exposed.This is a manifestation of the meta-narrator’s will.Therefore,the isomorphism between the fictionality of reality and textual reality is anchored in narrating,a uniquely human activity characterized by reflexivity and transcendence.