Patricia Waughs Metafiction
Patricia Waugh, in her essay "What is Metafiction and why are they Saying Such Awful Things About It? ... Metafiction may thus, deal with the particular conventions of the novel by parodying accepted generic conventions. ... The title of Waughs essay suggests that metafictional narratives have met their fair share of criticism especially in contemporary fiction, where it is seen as self-indulgence" and "decadent". Indeed, because metafiction deals with uncertainties, such as the nature of our constructed reality and even questions our accepted norms, that its unpopularity can be understood. ... Metafiction and the postmodern thought with which it is associated would thus seem to attempt to overthrow the only concrete means by which we can ground ourselves in a world that is seemingly illusory. We might argue that metafiction and postmodernism can never find their places in the Literary or academic world, simply because humans are unable to accept that they are living in an uncertain and fluctuating universe.