On The Application Of Metafictional Narrative Strategies In Ian McEwan’s Atonement

Atonement is the prominent British writer Ian McEwan’s masterpiece. It has been warmly welcomed by the public since its publication and is shortlisted for the Booker Prize in2001. The unique design of characters and the plot bring to the readers a sudden shock. Just as Mr Ding Jianning once said "He (Ian McEwan) intricately mixed a serious theme with popular elements, which made this novel about love, war, crime and novel rather impressive and profound."In this romantic novel,its narration is characterized as a metafiction which embodies a strong sense of self-consciousness in its narrative structure and writing style. By the implication of metafictional frame and intertextuality, the fiction combines the act of narration and the contents of narration in one. The fictional nature of the fiction and the reality which are created by the fiction intermingled, juxtaposed and compared at different textual levels. Based on the theory and practice of metafiction, together with the method of narratology, this paper aims to analyze metafictional narrative strategies of Atonement from the perspectives of Chinese box structure and intertextuality, which clarifies that the boundary between fictional reality and fictional nature of fiction, between art and reality are self—consciously erased. Studying Atonement from the perspectives of metafiction can help us uncover Ian McEwan’s humanistic thoughts and skeptical attitudes. Guided by such ambition, this paper mainly consists of three chapters including introduction, contents and conclusion. In the introduction part, a literature review is given to review the current research on Atonement, and illustrate the basis and value of this thesis. The contents include three chapters:Chapter One concentrates on the metafictional frame in Atonement. In this chapter, the present author borrows Gerald Genette’s theory in narratology to analyze such structure. In Atonement, the narrative structure is characterized as a metafiction, in which the coda exposes the fictive nature of the previous chapters which is created by Briony as a fiction about Briony. In such frame, stories are contained in other stories; one narration is contained in another narration. The sense of reality which is created by language juxtaposes with the sense of fiction that exists in reality. Such two senses bestow the fiction an obvious character of self—consciousness.In Chapter Two, Julia Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality is employed to analyze the frequent employment of intertextuality in Atonement. In the design of the characters, the parallelism with preceding literary characters, and an innovative parody on modernist writings, these design foregrounds Ian McEwan’s profound memory about the British literary history from realism to modernism. But what is more important is that the employment of intertextuality makes it impossible that several literary pieces from different times juxtapose in one text. Then an uncertainty of narrative and meaning is derived, and refers the meaning of the text to the fictional nature of novels.Chapter Three will explore the real author Ian McEwan’s humanistic thoughts and skeptical attitudes reveal through the metafictional narrative strategies of Atonement. Firstly, the application of Chinese box structure and the employment of intertextuality exemplify Ian McEwan’s humanistic concerns while he is writing in an artistic way and express the author’s self—conscious thinking on objects and subjects. In the stroy, Briony using imagination to atone for the crime that caused by her former imagination, the metafictional coda reveals Ian McEwan’s humanistic concerns, just as Peter Childs said "Imagine oneself as others is the source of compassion". In Atonement, a dialogue between self and others, between McEwan’s story and modernist story are uncovered. Secondly, the Chinese box structure and intertextuality present the writer’s question about reality and fictionality, which in the fiction are inclusively created by language. Such metafictional theme is coincided with Ian McEwan’s skeptical attitudes on absolute truth and the reality created by language.The analyses of Atonement from the point of metafictional narrative strategies provide the present author with a relatively solid basis to attain a more objective perspective of his subjective philosophical assumptions. The Chinese box structure and intertextuality applied in this fiction are saturated with the real author—Ian McEwan’s humanistic concerns to human and society besides with his skeptical attitudes about the real world. Through the highly self-conscious writing strategy, McEwan forces the reader to understand the constructed nature of the fictional character, and at the same time invites the reader to recall the subjectivity of the real world that we inhabit. In Atonement,Briony writes for atonement, and in the end by revising the story in which she understands love and life, she receives atonement. The author attempts to warn the readers to imagine themselves in the position of other people. Imagination becomes the source of compassion. The Chinese box structure differentiates the story into three levels of texts. Briony’s paradoxical understanding of "saw" complexes the truth constructed on language. Thus the real author McEwan’s skeptical attitudes are boldly exposed. Being as an extremely interesting novel in contemporary English literary world, Atonement’s unique characteristic of self-consciousness and profound thinking in philosophy, especially humanism and skepticism can not be separated from its metafictional narrative strategies.