Extended Essays 2021

Pastiche

Pastiche is the literary equivalent of a collage. It is a postmodern technique in which multiple

elements are combined. Often, authors will use pastiche to not only combine, but imitate other

texts or genres. In terms of historical author-centred approaches, before the eighteenth century,

‘an author’s originality was not especially esteemed; rather it was the skill involved in rewriting

an older source that mattered’ . Postmodernism returned to these pre-eighteenth century views,

which had been undone by ‘notions of individualism and creativity’ celebrated by the Romantic

movement. 37 Postmodern authors like Calvino and Mitchell use pastiche to celebrate these

views.

As well as the non-linearity, or temporal distortion, of each of the chapters in both IOAWNAT

and Cloud Atlas , the combination of them and the ‘collage’ they create is evidence of pastiche.

However, pastiche is particularly prominent in Cloud Atlas because of the clear differences in

each sub-story. Having each novella set up with a different protagonist in a different setting

and time period allows readers to see great separation between each sub-story. Mitchell uses

pastiche so readers can differentiate between each novella, which allows the ideal reader to

also notice the clear change in narrator focalisation. The different stories also allow for

Mitchell’s combination of genres including sci -fi, mystery, cyberpunk, and period drama. In

fact, Mitchell makes sure that his use of pastiche is clear to readers through typography,

structure and writing style. In the novel itself, each chapter is structured differently. The

primary narrative, The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, is written as journal entries, where

Adam is the focalised narrator. However, the secondary narrative, Letters to Zedelghem, is

written as a series of letters where R.F. becomes the focalised narrator, which readers can

clearly distinguish as he is the one writing the letters. Mitchell further emphasises the

37 Beginning Theory. Peter Barry, 1995

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