Extended Essays 2021

In both novels, Mitchell and Calvino utilise metafiction in their own ways. By changing form

and externalising the role of the contemporary author, they establish the concept of an

unreliable narrator. The externalisation of the contemporary narrator allows the reader to

generate a ‘multiplicity of interpretations 23 ’ which would not happen in a historical reader-

centred text, where an author would use an omniscient narrator to present all information to

the readers, so the only interpretation of the text would be the one intended by the historical

author. Instead, Calvino and Mitchell utilise metafiction and a contemporary author-centred

approach to craft an unreliable narrator and allow readers to come to their own conclusions

about their novels.

23 The Intentional Fallacy. Wimsatt and Beardsley, 1998

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