Extended Essays 2021

Conclusion

Metafiction, temporal distortion, and pastiche are techniques that are evidently used by Italo

Calvino and David Mitchell to establish the concept of an unreliable narrator in their novels.

Each technique is used to challenge readers in accordance with the contemporary Reader

Response Theory in which they must make decisions on what is true or not in the context of

the fictional story. In doing so, Calvino and Mitchell present the narrator as untrustworthy to

the readers. Wayne C. Booth defines a narrator as ‘ reliable when he speaks for or acts in

accordance with the norms of the work, unreliabl e when he does not’ . Through the postmodern

techniques explored, the historical ‘norms’ of the novels are continuously changed and

challenged by mixing the real world and the fictional world, the past with the future and one

genre with another. Calvino and Mitchell both take contemporary author-centred approaches

to their novels, highlighting their role as postmodern authors when challenging historical

beliefs in literature. Both authors craft an unreliable narrator by using postmodern techniques

engaging readers in a contemporary reader- centred approach. By doing this, readers ‘fill the

gaps’ left by narrators in the novels based on their own interpretations and personal

experiences. Mitchell and Calvino strive to embrace the experimentational attitude of the

postmodern movement. In doing so, postmodern techniques, such as metafiction, temporal

distortion, and pastiche are used expertly by Italo Calvino in ‘ If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller ’

and David Mitchell ’s ‘ Cloud Atlas ’ to establish the concept of a n unreliable narrator.

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