Where Fact and Fiction Mix: Metafiction and Self-reflexivity in the Blind Assassin

The present paper aims to study Waugh’s theory of metafiction and self-reflexivity with respect to The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Patricia Waugh uses the term metafiction to refer to the tendency of novels to be self-reflexive. Atwood’s Blind Assassin experiments with history and narrative so as to underline the interdependent nature of history and narrative. In other words, she disrupts the chronological sequence of storytelling and offers alternative versions of the so-called historical truths in order to pinpoint the relativity of all truths and the randomness of all narratives. Atwood gives an account of how writing is influenced by actual events and how it influences them in its own turn, in order to show the positionality of most claims made in several disciplines such as history and politics. The fact that Atwood is a female writer writing about female characters who have to deal with a patriarchal world is the final aspect by means of which the fictionality of non-fictional accounts is divulged. In other words, feminine narratives in a patriarchal discourse serve as alternate possibilities to the orthodox and conformist versions of truth.

کلیدواژه ها:

Metafiction ، Narrative ، Self reflexivity ، The Blind Assassin