Extended Essays 2021

accordance with the norms of the work, unreliable when he does not ’ 6 . Through the

contemporary works of postmodern authors, ‘norms’ of a particular work can be hard to

distinguish, as historical ‘norms’ of literature are continuously challenged. By using

postmodern techniques, Calvino and Mitchell craft an unreliable narrator in their novels,

therefore, the following question was posed:

“How have postmodern techniques been utilised by Italo Calvino in ‘If on a Winter’s

Night a Traveller and David Mitchell ’s ‘Cloud Atlas’ t o establish the concept of an

unreliable narrator?”

As recognised by many postmodern critics 7 , the most evident techniques explored in both

novels are metafiction, temporal distortion, and pastiche. These techniques have been used by

both authors in similar and contrasting ways to emphasise the concept of an unreliable narrator.

This research question has been chosen to conduct an analysis on how each author utilises these

postmodern techniques. Although many techniques can already be recognised by readers, this

question also offers opportunity to analyse the concept of an unreliable narrator and how it is

crafted and presented to readers.

6 The Rhetoric of Fiction. Wayne C. Booth, 1961 7 Beginning Theory. Peter Barry, 1995

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