Extended Essays 2021

Temporal Distortion

Temporal distortion is a postmodern technique in which a story jumps forwards or backwards

in time. This includes fragmentation in a non-linear order. As discussed, postmodernism

‘deliberately mixes high art with low art, the past with the future or one genre with another’ 24 ;

temporal distortion is a technique by which this is done. By using temporal distortion, time

may also overlap, repeat, or split into multiple possibilities. Again, the Reader Response

Theory becomes prominent as readers must rearrange the novel into a linear timeline or recall

when each event is taking place. Temporal distortion is used by postmodern authors for

strategic reasons. It deliberately ‘breaks the spell of the narrative, reminding [readers] of its

moral complexities, so that [they] do not become uncriticall y engrossed in reading’ 25 .

In IOAWNAT , Calvino declares to readers that “ I like to swim against the stream of time: I

would like to erase the consequences of certain events and restore an initial condition ” 26 . This

metaphor is another example of poioumena, where Calvino tells the readers his view on

linearity and then proceeds to utilise temporal distortion. By Booth’s def inition of an unreliable

narrator, Calvino is ‘misreporting’ , as the author is interrupting the narrator to address his

authorial persona, emphasising the present concept of an unreliable narrator in his novel. In

IOAWNAT , half of the chapters are written in second person and refer to “you” as the reader,

and the other half are about “you” reading a series of short stories, fragments of the same novel.

The chapters are even named accordingly; Chapter One followed by If on a Winter’s Night a

Traveller, Chapter Two, Outside the Town of Malbork and so on. Calvino uses temporal

distortion to ‘split’ his novel into multiple possibilities. Within the novel, each time “you”

replace the book “you” are reading, it becomes a different story altogether. Calvino writes that

24 Beginning Theory. Peter Barry, 1995 25 Beginning Theory. Peter Barry, 1995 26 IOAWNAT – Page 10

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