Metafiction In Borges And Cortazar's Continuity Of Parks example essay topic

MetafictionInBorges' "Theme of the traitor and the hero " AndCortazar's "Continuity of parks " The boundary between that which is real and that which is imitation or illusion, has a long intellectual history. In Republic, Plato describes the state of the majority of people's lived experience. Chained to the spot, humanity looks at shadows of artifacts cast by the light of a fire. It is only when they turn around that they realize they have been living a fantasy that is twice removed from the authentic universe. For behind them, are the artifacts themselves and beyond the cave, the Forms of which the artifacts are copies. Finally, they observe the sun and behold the Form of the Good, the all powerful organizing force that is the highest achievable state of reality.

Unlike Plato, however, Borges' "Theme of the traitor and the hero" and Cortazar's "Continuity of parks", calls the existence of this binary into question; the world of Forms is collapsed into that of its imitations. The result is two stories in which different realities seem to interpenetrate each other, de familiarizing the reader's sense of truth. The world of fact and the world of fiction become one. Both are works of metafiction as they " re "self reflexive, self-conscious and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality; and also explore the possible fictional ity of the world and its (Hi) story outside the literary fictional text" (Patricia Waugh) Borges' "Theme of the traitor and the hero" and Cortazar's "Continuity of parks" both are examples of metafiction.

Borges's tory examines history (essentially being a documentation of "reality") as a provisional construct rather than an objective and accurate account: and in Cortazar's story the readers identity is assimilated or rather merged with the story to make "reality" a highly suspicious concept. Both stories achieve the singular effect of creating an impression that reality is no longer understandable; history is just fiction (or constructions). Borges by inverting the roles of the Traitor and the Hero, and Cortazar by "murdering" his reader make us doubt what we consider to be real or the truth and suggest that both words (real and truth) exist only in plural form and not in the singular form as they are generally ascertained to be. Plato's dichotomy about reality is used by both authors. With Borges most firmly mimicking Plato by creating different dimensions of his imagination within the work itself: "And Behind the fictional Borges there stands another Borges who has made up this one, idle afternoon and all.

And perhaps behind that one... ". (from commentary of "Theme of the traitor and the hero"). History itself is seen as "cyclic", a repetition or imitation of the past. Cortazar, by de-centering which is the imitation and which is the copy (the reader and the protagonist) by intrinsically merging the two achieves the same effect. In essence by transposing reality and fiction, he also suggests existence to be of a circular path. Both the stories assume the mode of reality by presenting themselves to be not "real". As in "Theme of the traitor and the hero" Borges tells us "is a story plot I imagined in my idle hours".

In "Continuity of parks" Cortazar makes the fictional form obvious, by clearly pointing out the presence of a story (within the story), "He remembered effortlessly the names and the mental images of the characters: the novel spread its glamour over him almost at once". . By stating that 'I am make-believe. ', the story lays bare perhaps the most fundamental device of all fiction: the frame that defines the story as a fictional world. The reader must now cope with "three levels of reality": the universe as we know it, the fictional reality in "Continuity of parks", and the world presented in the novel inside "Continuity of parks".

All three, at times contradictory, at others in harmony, vie for our attention. Only by establishing themselves as fiction, does the stories attain their realism. By juxtaposing fictional characters and historical figures, .".. before having been Fergus Kilpatrick, Fergus Kilpatrick was Julia Caesar". , by showing Kilpatrick replaying Macbeth, by letting the reader lose his identity in a novel, the stories show the fallacy that lies in the bridge between fiction and non-fiction. Human beings are projected as the products of imagination (their own or others), and what we " re capable of imagining, whether or not in a pre-disposed harmony like Borges muses, is reality. The two stories "explore a theory of writing fiction through the practice of writing fiction' (Patricia Waugh). That is both of them examine the fictional form, though the methods employed are varied by the two.

Borges's tory is by definition a metafiction as it's the "story" about the creation of a story. Borges's tory is completely conscious of its "fictional" state. A concept that the reader is repeatedly reminded by Borges' intrusion to comment on the writing, e.g. "Details, rectification's and adjustments are lacking... ". or. ".. (this investigation is one of the gaps in my plot) ". Like Marxist propaganda plays, where in the end the curtain in pulled away to show the puppeteers controlling the puppets, all mystery and myth, and the inherent deception that lies behind the writing process of "fiction" are revealed. Attention is closely drawn to plot, characterization and settings, allowing the readers to observe the seams in the illusion. Cortazar's story is not only aware that it's a fiction, but that it's a metafiction.

In the sense that it's also a story within a story that shows fiction and reality to be parallel and interchangeable constructs, e.g. .".. the almost perverse pleasure of disengaging himself line by line from the things around him" That is showing how a novel, through its narrative process, by invoking the characters and settings, slowly assimilate and blurs the concept of reality. "Reality" seems to be the most repeated word in this paper In 1992, one prophet of rage, Bill Hicks, drunk, enraged, disaffected uttered in the last public discourse of his life, "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we " re all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there's no such thing as death, life is just a dram and we " re the imagination of ourselves". The same thoughts seem to plague Borges and Cortazar in their stories. The works under analysis stem from a postmodern introspection of our consciousness and perception of "reality".

Both Borges and Cortazar, in the two stories, ask different ontological questions relating to nature of what we believe and perceive to be real. Borges's tory has two purpose. First, to undermine the authority and objectivity of historical sources and explanations (the given stature to Nolan and Kilpatrick and Ryan's documentation of them) and to de marginalize the literary through confrontation with the historical. Second, having listed the possible transposition of history and literature and their essential symbiotic and even their singular (that is history and literature, i.e. fiction and non-fiction, being one) existence, suggest a cyclic pattern in the existence of humanity. Thus showing that literature and history are possibly the same disciplines interpreting human experience, a truth established by the base fact that the composition of the word history contains the word "story". Borges also points out the fallacy of the concept of identifying the "objective" with history and the "subjective" with fiction.

Borges presents the history of humanity as tainted and tampered with, as a construction of those privileged enough to do so, an by doing so, he (Borges) questions history and all that we consider to be "real". Cortazar, by pulling the "reader" into the "story", shows, how the human consciousness can be manipulated and cognitive recognition of fiction and reality can be altered. Therefore both the authors end up creating the same impression with their different questions, Cortazar's "Are we here?" being contrasted by Borges' "Are we who we think we " re?" . The two authors show the invalidity of history's and society's collective pontification, and expose a need to make the "hidden" visible. Whether to uncover the Lilli ths of history or to confront repressed memories of our own psyche. In the two stories, the authors also probe the relationship that exists between the reader and the author.

The idea of the author portrayed by Borges is a paradox. As the author is both the power and the powerless. He fashions his tale and subverts our psyche all the while suggesting that he (Borges) himself is being controlled by someone else. The written word is shown to be a tool for manipulation, a constructed script of possible repetitive nature employed to inject us with the ideas of the author.

Cortazar (and even Borges to some extent) shows reading to be a more of a co-operative process between the reader and the author. That the reader willingly lets the author exploit him / her (note the references to the power of attorney and the discussion of joint ownership with the estate manager), as exemplified by the reader in "The continuity of parks" who slowly disengages himself from his immediate "reality" in order to connect to the "reality" of the novel he's reading. However willingly it, happens, submission on the reader's part puts him under the control of the author and places him / her firmly in the author's "reality" where he must fall victim to a fate pre-ordained by the author. It's this power that the authors wield to express in their metafiction's that non-fiction novels suggest that facts are ultimately fiction; metafictional novels suggest that fictions are facts. That by creating "fiction" that parallels reality, the reader becomes analogous with the stories character cease to be "real" and thus under the direction of the author of the "fiction". That by allowing ourselves to be assimilated by a constructed universe used to examine another constructed universe, we can deconstruct our own world.

The authors are therefore capable of constructing "three worlds" (refer to paragraph 3, ln 7), that seemed so different at first, collapse into a single monolithic possibility from which there is no escape The purpose of metafiction we can say is to create a universe of textual construct to show the processes by which a reader reads the world as a text. Again, asking us to question the legitimacy of our own authenticity. The characters in the stories too experience problems of authenticity. Most of them are marginalized characters that fall outside the boundaries of conventional society. They are not authentic citizens of any particular nationality and hence by extension, not authentic people. Infact as Borges points out, his characters could be anyone and from anywhere ("as long as it's a oppressed and tenacious country").

And Cortazar's character (fiction to begin with), being so perfectly analogous to the fictitious character within the story's novel, loses all claims of authenticity. The two stories give us an idea of the spectrum of metafiction. First, that type of fiction which either directly examines its own construction as it proceeds or which comments or speculates about the forms and language of previous fictions, i.e. "Theme of the traitor and the hero". And a second, more general category which seek to examine how all fictional systems operate, their methodology, the sources of their appeal, and the dangers of their being dogmatized, i.e. "Continuity of parks". This intense self-reflexiveness of metafiction is caused by the fact that the only certain reality for the metafiction ist is the reality of his own discourse; thus, his fiction turns in upon itself, transforming the process of writing into the subject of writing.

It's a fictional game and both Julio Cortazar and Borges are masters of the form. Both authors are passionate about reconciling the difference between fiction and non-fiction and moreover offering us a fresh perspective on life. In a capitalist world where conformism is the norm, these two authors compel one to turn inward and find ones own definition of reality and refuse the dogmas of society.

Bibliography

Patricia Waugh: "Metafiction; The Theory and Practice of self-conscious Fiction " Bill Hicks: "Arizona Bay".