Shuttling Between Truth And Falsity: A Reading Of Flaubert’s Parrot As Historiographic Metafiction

Julian Barnes is one of the most important writers which have the most influencein the1980s. He has carved out a reputation as one of contemporary Britain’s mostbrilliant and sophisticated novelist, often grouped with Martin Amis and Ian McEwan.Julian Barnes breaks the traditional narrative mode and tries his best to different kindsof experimental skills, hence he is awarded as “The British literary chameleon”(Stout,1992:58). His first famous work not only has won the highest award the BritishLibrary—The Booker Prize, but only makes him become the literary celebrity andtypical postmodern novelist.This thesis tries to apply the theories and related concepts of historiographicmetafiction to analyze the novel Flaubert’s Parrot which makes Julian Barnesrenowned in the international literature. This thesis exposes that the author querieshistory and then blurs the relation between truth and falsity. Meanwhile, it alsoprovides polyphonic and multiple histories for the readers.This thesis has five chapters.Chapter one is the introductory part, which briefly introduces the backgroundinformation about the author and his work Flaubert’s Parrot. There also existdomestic and overseas researches on this novel from different perspectives.Meanwhile, the significance of the study, methodology of the thesis and the purposeof the thesis has been introduced in the first chapter.Chapter two will focus on the introduction of historiographic metafiction, whichis stated from four aspects-the background of historiographic metafiction; thedefinition of historiographic metafiction; the major characteristics of historiographicmetafiction; the major problems of historiographic metafiction. In this chapter, thetheory of historiographic metafiction will be clearly stated, which is the foundation ofthe text analysis.Chapter three is the most important part in this thesis. This chapter contains threeparts: the narrative strategies of Flaubert’s Parrot; the problematic of subjectivity ofthe novel; the problem of referring and representation; the relation between fact andfiction. This thesis mainly exposes the difficulty and impossibility of representationby analyzing two aspects: the real track is not pursued; the memory is unreliable. Atthe same time, Julian Barnes blurs the line between truth and falsity by means of twoways. The first way to blur the line between fact and fiction is by mingling real-life figures or events with a make-up person or story to make a half-false-half-true world.The other way to blur the line between truth and falsity is that Braithwaite, the majornarrator, invited the real reader to participate in the story.Chapter four includes multiple histories, which is the theme of the novel. Thischapter mainly analyzes multiple histories narrated by two marginal narrators:Braithwaite and Louise Colet and official histories and unofficial histories. Differenthistories provided by different voices and different points of view are put together. Bydoing this, Julian Barnes not only make readers have a better understanding ofFlaubert, but also offer readers multiple histories.Chapter five is the conclusion part. This part focuses on the objectives of JulianBarnes in writing the novel. His work Flaubert’s Parrot on the one hand exposes thatthe author queries the real history, meanwhile lets the readers deeply realize thedifficulty and impossibility of representing the real history; on the other hand, theauthor provides multiple histories by putting together histories narrated by differentvoices and official histories and unofficial histories.