Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol 3, No 4 (2012), 778-783, Jul 2012
doi:10.4304/jltr.3.4.778-783

Study of the Open Structure in Oracle Night as a Metafiction

Hui Ni

Abstract


Paul Auster is one of America’s most inventive and original postmodernist writers, whose novels have received worldwide popularity. His new piece Oracle Night was written in 2003 when the literary postmodernism has become a prominent literary tendency and when metafiction has been a typically postmodernist writing model. This thesis aims to study metafictional structural features of Paul Auster’s Oracle Night, which has not been given due critical attention to both in China and in foreign countries. Based on detailed textual analysis, the study contends that Oracle Night holds the structural features as a metafiction by attempting to explore the representative one, namely, the Open Structure exploited in this novel. According to the thesis, Auster violates normal narrative standards and creates a metafictional structure by subverting the “closed” structure into an Open Structure, which altogether accomplishes one of the fundamental features of metafictional writing.


Keywords


Paul Auster; metafiction; open beginning; open ending; plots

References


 

[1] Varvogli, A. (2001).That is the Book: Paul Auster’s Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool UP.

[2] Aristotle (1997). Poetic. Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin Books.

[3] Auster, P. (2004). Oracle Night. New York: Henry Holt Co. Ltd.

[4] Auster, P. (1992). The Art of Hunger: Essays, Prefaces, Interviews. New York: Sun & Moon Press.

[5] Beckson, K. & A. Ganz. (1983). Literary Terms: A Dictionary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

[6] Bertens, H. (1995). The Idea of Postmodern. New York: Routledge.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203359327

[7] Martin, B. (2008). Paul Auster’s Postmodernity. New York & London: Routledge.

[8] Creeley, R. (1994). “Austerities—Interpretations of Paul Auster’s writings.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction. London: Dalkey Archive Press.

[9] Delaney, S. (1958). A Taste of Honey. New York: Grove Press.

[10] Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

[11] Bloom, H (ed.) (2004). Paul Auster. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publ.

[12] Shiloh, I. (2002). Paul Auster and Postmodern Quest. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

[13] Lodge, D. (1970). The Novelist at the Crossroads. New York: Cornell University Press.

[14] Lodge, D. (1977). The Modes of Modern Writing. New York: Cornell University Press.

[15] Mckee, R. (1997). Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. London: Methuen Publishing.

[16] Miller, J. (1998). Reading Narrative. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

[17] Spiegel, N. (1971). On Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.

[18] Stuart, S. (2005). The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. London: Routledge.

[19] Waugh, P. (1984). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious Fiction. New York: Methuen.

[20] Žižek, S. (1995), Looking Awry. Boston: The MIT Press.

[21] Zhang, Zhongzai. (2006). Selected Readings in Classical Western Critical Theory. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.


Full Text: PDF


Journal of Language Teaching and Research (JLTR, ISSN 1798-4769)

Copyright @ 2006-2012 by ACADEMY PUBLISHER – All rights reserved.