THE REBUPLIC OF TURKEY

SULEYMAN DEMIREL UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

WESTERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Metafictional Aspects in Federman’s To Whom It May Concern and Winterson’s Boating For Beginners

Layth Taher Tawfeeq 1330224059

MA DEGREE Thesis

Advisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ömer ŞEKERCİ

ISPARTA – 2016

T.C

SÜLEYMAN DEMİREL ÜNİVERSİTESİ

FEN VE EDEBİYAT FAKÜLTESİ

BATI DİLLERİ VE EDEBİYATI BÖLÜMÜ

Federman’ın “To Whom It May Concern” ve Winterson’ın “Boating for Beginners” adlı Eserlerindeki Üstkurgu

Layth Taher Tawfeeq 1330224059

YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ

Danışman Doç. Dr. ÖMER ŞEKERCİ

ISPARTA – 2016

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ÖZET

Federman’ın “To Whom It May Concern” ve Winterson’ın “Boating for Beginners” adlı Eserlerindeki Üstkurgu

Layth Taher Tawfeeq

Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatı Bölümü Yüksek Lisans Tezi, 2016

Danışman: Doç. Dr. Ömer ŞEKERCİ

Bu çalışma, Federman’ın “To Whom It May Concern” ve Winterson’ın “Boating For Beginners” adlı eserlerindeki üstkurguyu ele almaktadır. Federman’ın eseri İkinci Dünya Savaşının dehşetini ortaya koymaktadır. Federman’nın eserinde çok özel ve seçkin tarzıyla kulanmış olduğu üstkurgu unsurları eseri çok etkili ve olağanüstü kılmaktadır. Federman’nın eserinde kullanmış olduğu üstkurgusal unsurlar eserin anlamını ve önemini daha da derinleştirmektedir. Winterson’ın “Boating for Beginners” adlı eseri öyküsünü İncil’e dayandırmaktadır. Winterson eserinde yapıbozuculuk unsurları da kullanarak Hıristiyanlığı’n yanlışlarını ve maskaralıklarını parodisel bir üslupla ele almaktadır. Winterson, Hıristiyanlık dininde görmüş olduğu yanlışlara, ve yanlış öğretilere sert bir şekilde saldırmaktadır. Winterson’ın bu eserinde yapmaya çalıştığı şey Hırisitiyanlıkta görmüş olduğu eksiklikleri düzeltmektir. Bu çalışmada, her iki eserdeki üstkurgusal unsurları ele aldık.

ANAHTAR KELİMELER: Üstkurgu, Federman, Winterson, İkinci Dünya Savaşı, İncil

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Metafictional Aspects in Federman’s To Whom It May Concern and Winterson’s Boating for Beginners

Layth Taher Tawfeeq

Suleyman Demirel University, Institute of Social Sciences Department of English Language and Literature

2016

Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ömer ŞEKERCİ

ABSTRACT

This study deals with two works: Federman’s To Whom It May Concern and Winterson’s

Boating for Beginners. Federman’s story reflects the horrors of the Second World War. The way

how Federman uses the postmodern elements in his work with an elegant and unique approach

which makes his work one of the most influential with an extraordinary treatment of

metafictional aspects. Federman’s uses of metafictional elements in his work broaden the story’s

unlimited horizon and unbounded meaning. Winterson’s Boating for Beginners is based on the

Bible. She utilizes elements like deconstruction, parody, and playfulness to attack the wrong

Christian perceptions. She harshly attacks those miscomprehended concepts and teachings

mentioned in the Bible. What she is trying to do is to fulfill what is left missing in the Bible. We

have tried to exhibit the metafictional elements used in both works.

Keywords: Metafiction, Federman, Winterson, the Second World War, Bible

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research project would not have been possible without the support of Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Omer ŞEKERCİ for his support, guidance, effort, and immense knowledge, he has been more

than a teacher, a dear friend responsible, patient, motivated. His guidance helped me all the time

in research and writing of this thesis. I could not imagine having a better advisor and mentor for

my MA Study than him.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Beture Memmedova for

her care and motherhood spirit and immense knowledge which inspired me to go on with the

novel. I can not express how thankful I am and blessed to meet Assist. Prof. Dr. Sule Ozun who

helped and encouraged me to write this topic, her lessons were of a great influence on me, her

presence was a joy and inspiration. I would also like to add my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Hüseyinağa

Razayev for his careful attention and generous help. I would like to thank Yrd Doc. Dr. Mustafa

Caner for his precious time and bearing the trouble of traveling to Isparta.

I can not forget to thank my family for their never-ending support and patience. My wife and

my parents, my dear uncle, who bear the heavy work, following my progress all the time. Special

thanks go to my Turkish friends for their help and support, Ayse, Ertan, Pinar, Suzan, Ilker and

others whom I am honored to know. I also would like to thank the department for providing such

an academic staff who are glowing sparks enlighten us all the way.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TEZ SAVUNMA SINAV TUTANAĞI ......................................................................................... i

YEMİN METNİ ............................................................................................................................. ii

ÖZET ............................................................................................................................................ iii

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..............................................................................................................v

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. vi

CHAPTER I

1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................1

Aim of the Study ......................................................................................................................4

The Significance of the Study ..................................................................................................4

The Scope of the Study.............................................................................................................4

Methodology.............................................................................................................................5

The Review of Literature..........................................................................................................5

Limitations ................................................................................................................................6

1.2. Introduction to Metafiction ..................................................................................................7

1.3. Historical Development Postmodernism ............................................................................10

1.4. Use of Metafiction and Leading Figures ............................................................................15

1.5. Novel and Metafiction ........................................................................................................25

1.6. Metafiction in Winterson’s Works .....................................................................................28

1.7. Metafiction in Federman’s Works ......................................................................................33

CHAPTER II

2.1. Winerson’s Boating for Beginners .....................................................................................39

2.2. Federman’s To Whom It May Concern ..............................................................................49

2.3. Similarities and Differences ...............................................................................................57

2.4. Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................63

BİBİLİOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................65

CV .................................................................................................................................................71

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CHAPTER I

1.1. Introduction

We know the genre of novels through certain features which are known to every student of

literature. The characters, organization of the novel, theme, plot, the end which is usually sad or

happy, but since the 20th century, rapid changes started to overlap this form of literature.1

Experimental types of novels can be seen with modernism, which had some common features

with our new form which started by nearly mid-20th century with postmodern fiction, new

aspects developed and put in practice, new concepts of reality and history embodied through

metafiction and historiographic metafiction, parody, playfulness.2

The main reason for choosing to write about such a subject is because of its uniqueness, and

because it’s the first of its kind in the academic field in Iraq. Metafiction and all the forms that

are floating around set a whole new world of thinking, new ideas, mind provoking, and thinking

out of the box. This subject will not only show metafictional aspects of both novels, but I will go

through metafiction in general and what is related to it, how it was developed throughout history.

The most important leading figures like Gass, who coined the term and other theorists like

Derrida, Hutcheon, Barth and Federman who contributed to develop this new form, which will

be explained in each part of this thesis.

The thesis will be in two chapters. Each chapter contains several parts as it is shown in the

content. Chapter one will be an introductory chapter which will give an overview about

postmodernism and metafiction which will focus on the main leading figures like Gass,

Hutcheon and Federman plus Federman’s and Winterson’s metafiction. The finishing touches

will be in the second chapter, which will demonstrate the metafictional aspects, similarities and

differences between the two novels. Federman’s To Whom It May Concern (1990), a semi-

autobiographical novel, which takes us back to The Second World War horror and how the

young boy survived the aftermath with his cousin (Sarah). The novel Incidents cannot be told

without a new typographical way of uttering these events and a new treatment of reality.

1 Ozlem Demirbilek. “A Maggot and The French Lieutenant Women by John Fowles as Historiographic Metafiction”, Atilim University, 2003, p. 9. 2 Ibid., p. 9.

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For Federman, “fiction is above all an effort to apprehend and comprehend human existence

played on the level of words”3. The language is supposed to be a medium to transfer thoughts

into written text, but in some cases like Federman’s novel were incidents became so complicated

and difficult to express so he had to render it in a metafictional mode.4 To be more accurate the

text somehow creates meaning, and meaning creates life, fiction is made of words which we

understand, so that language came first and fiction is a process which let the language do its

tricks.5 We chose this novel because it is a perfect representation of postmodernism. Federman

was not just a writer as we explained before he is also associated with the invention of the term

metafiction or surfiction as he calls it. Federman’s novel is a whole new experience, every page

and every paragraph is a puzzle need to be examined and inspected, Federman does not only

write a novel to be read but he added life to it, marked with absence and the constant search for

answers which are never found.

The reason we chose Winterson’s Boating For Beginners (1985) because it was a unique work

written by Winterson not only from style point of view but because it was ground breaking and

bold move especially from a woman writer. The novel is one of the most playful metafictional

works ever. She linked the present to some reconstructed moment in the past, Noah and the Ark

in Boating for Beginners, and definitely further explanations will be revealed in specific parts of

this thesis.

The main sources which will be used to support this thesis are Linda Hutcheon’s Poetics of

Postmodernism (2004), Waugh’s Metafiction (2001), Raman Selden’s A Reader’s Guide to

Contemporary Literary Theory (2005), other dissertations, like Elif Onal and many articles from

the Internet which were very helpful.

We will come across some distinguished philosophers like Ihab Hassan, one of many who

wrote about postmodernism and he called to theorize the term, he distinguished between

modernism and postmodernism. George Lukacs a Hungarian philosopher who wrote The

Ideology of Modernism (1958) his time witnessed waning of modernism fiction, he criticized the

modern fiction. Roland Barthes French philosopher who has a great contributions in

3 Raymond Federman. Critifiction. Sunny Press, 1993, p. 38. 4 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically”, Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 100. 5 Raymond Federman. Critifiction. Sunny Press, 1993, p. 38.

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postmodernism, his proclamation “The Death of the Author” and the call to refuse fix meaning

and theological (religious belief) even God. 6 Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian-French philosopher,

feminist whom called for the idea of textual productivity, she and her colleagues mounted an

attack on fixed meaning in the text, which question the entire notion of text.7 Wittgenstein,

Austrian-British philosopher, he had great contributions in 20th century literature, the reason we

mentioned him because he claimed “truth claims’ of knowledge derive from discrete, context-

dependent ‘language games’, not absolute rules or standards” which Lyotard challenged as well

as Nietzsche’s critique of the totalizing claims of reason as being without moral or philosophical

grounds (or ‘legitimation’).8 Heidegger, a German philosopher who believes that the best way to

exhibit the subject-matter of first philosophy is to pursue one actual metaphysical question; since

all of them are inter-connected, each inevitably leads us into all of the others. Although

traditional learning focuses on what is, Heidegger noted, it may be far more illuminating to

examine the boundaries of ordinary knowledge by trying to study what is not.9

Finally, we hope with this study, we can give these two masterpieces justice and fair

demonstration, showing the metafictional aspects and the differences between the two works.

Federman’s and Winterson’s novels are not an easy task at all, but the results are so fruitful to

keep working on such stories over and over again. Federman’s story To Whom It May Concern

was an incarnate to the suffering he had to witness day by day during The Second World War,

which left a man’s soul split into two pieces relentlessly trying to find his other half through

fiction by giving symbols of life and death like Sarah’s garden and her cousin statue and the

unanswered question of their survival. Winterson used the Bible in her novel Boating for

Beginners to criticize the system, so she chose the Bible, which should be the source of truth and

authenticity claiming that there are some gaps in the text. The fact is postmodern novels has a

wide variety of subjects to deal with because even for critics, it has much more in these novels

and for further studies, it can be addressed from many points of views for example reading the

novel ecocritically, or historiographic metafiction.

6 Christopher Butler. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 23. 7 Linda Hutcheon. Poetics of Postmodernism. Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 126. 8 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson Longman, 2005, p. 206. 9 Wikipedia contributors. "Martin Heidegger." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 May. 2016. Web. 20 May. 2016.

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Aim of the study

The aim of the study is to discuss the metafictional aspects in Federman’s To Whom It May

Concern and Winterson’s Boating for Beginners. Both writers approached fiction differently, our

aim is explore those aspects and discuss each one of them and how they were so effective in

shaping their stories. Winterson aimed to strike the society pillars and shake the image of the

most valuable symbols, she deconstructed the Bible and gave an alternative modern story full of

hypocrisy. Federman’s story about Sarah and her cousin, which resembled his early life and the

horror of the war which left no place for conventional way to tell the story.

The Significance of the Study

Few articles and research papers have been written addressing Federman’s To Whom It May

Concern and Winterson’s Boating for Beginners and the metafictional aspects, specifically

parody, playfulness, deconstruction, self-reflexivity. The issue here is, realism no more tenable,

and the only way is to apply different methods, in which reality must be approached from

different perspectives. We aim here at how metafiction takes over. This thesis will be a source

for further studies of Federman’s works and his approach into reality.

The Scope of the Study

This study will address Federman’s To Whom It May Concern and Winterson’s Boating for

Beginners. We will discuss the metafictional aspects in both of them as how they approached

their story. The reason they presented their stories in an unconventional way by adopting

plotlessness, parody, self-reflexivity, playfulness. And why they rejected realism. Federman’s

novel tells the story of Sarah and her cousin who ran away during The Second World War, how

they survived, their separation, their reunion, terrifying incidents which found no place except

only with Federman’s fiction. Winterson’s novel denotes a direct attack on the pillars of society

by using the Bible and Noah’s story as her subject, by deconstructing the image of God, the

author of the authors, as she found many gaps in the text which she used to make her novel.

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Methodology

In this study we are dealing with metafictional aspects in Winterson's and Federman's novels,

what are those aspects, and how we analyzed the novels. We preferred to use textual analysis

which means interpreting the text in the light of its construction within the novel. The reason we

chose this method because the text has multiple themes and interpretations, we will focus on how

Winterson and Federman touch on those themes by using different literary devices. We will

discuss the use of parody and playfulness in Winterson's Novel based on critical studies.

Federman's novel has many themes also which he touched on by using self-reflexivity,

plotlessness and ecocriticism, which will be discussed based on research papers.

The Review of Literature

We can point out some of the main sources that we used to accomplish this study and how

they approached metafiction: Raman Selden’s A Reader Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory

(2005) Is a precious guide in contemporary literature and provided a wide range of information

on postmodernism, metafiction, etc. Linda Hutcheon’s A Poetic Of Postmodernism: History,

Theory, Fiction the model she used “would characterize postmodernism in fiction would be what

I call historiographic metafiction”10. Serpil Oppermann’s Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May

Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically (2012) pursued metafiction differently because she

focused on very particular things within Federman’s work like to “bring metafiction into

dialogue with ecocriticism in order to enable fruitful cross-fertilization between postmodern and

ecological perception of reality”11, Patricia Waugh’s Metafiction: The Theory and Practice Of

Self-Conscious fiction (2001), Waugh did very good job with metafiction as she approached the

term from different points of views.

10 Ibid., p. 4. 11 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically”, Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 95.

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Limitations

This study was limited in dealing with metafictional aspects in Winterson’s Boating for

Beginners and Federman’s To Whom it May Concern. The current study was restricted on one

hand to examine Winterson’s novel parody by demolishing the symbol of power and truth (God)

to criticize authority; further studies could be included in like sex issues. On the other hand

Federman’s novel self-reflexivity, the relationship between self and land, language games,

further studies could be accomplished and enlarged.

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1.2. Introduction to Metafiction Metafiction as a term was first revealed in the mid-20th century by the American critic

William H. Gass.12 The term is in two parts (meta) (fiction) meta refers to more advanced level

or beyond anything or no limitation.13 To give the term more flexibility, it appears within a

broader movement called postmodernism. There are a number of definitions and explanations to

metafiction. Gass in the late 1960’s said: “somehow about fiction itself”14. Waugh defines

metafiction “it was given to fictional writing, which self-consciously and systematically draws

attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between

fiction and reality”15. Another definition is given by one of the most prominent leading figures.

Federman called for innovative and genuine writing:

For me, the only fiction that still means something today is that kind of fiction that tries to explore the possibilities of fiction; the kind of fiction that challenges the tradition that governs it; the kind of fiction that constantly renews our faith in man's imagination and not in man's distorted vision of reality- that reveals man's irrationality rather than man's rationality” it is a kind of fiction Federman entitled “Surfiction” not because it imitates reality, but because it exposes the fictionality of reality.16

To know more about metafiction we must point out its characteristics which were a big

changeover not only in literature but in language and its applications. Before we go on with

metafiction, let us point out how different metafiction is from previous forms or applications.

Metafiction challenged all traditional values and it shocked the old rules we used to know, like

the organization of the work, so as we have gradual development in the novel, the author

influences, the plot, the end, all was rejected or remolded by metafiction.

12 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Frances, 2001, p. 3. 13 Ibid., p. 3. 14 Mark Currie. Metafiction. Taylor & Frances, 1995, p. 1. 15 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Frances, 2001, p. 2. 16 Raymond Federman. Critifiction: Postmodern essays. Albany State University of NY Press, 1993, p. 37.

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In the last decades, around mid-20th century there was a sense of change and bizarre

movements or forthcomings in fiction, the change is not far away from original elements.17 It can

be seen in Federman’s Double or Nothing (1998), To Whom It May Concern, or in Winterson’s

Boating for Beginners where even works came from abroad which gave the impression that

something wild is happening to fiction.18 Uttering this new approach without bringing up

Federman’s name is unjust. His collection of written essays under the name Surfiction, in these

essays Surfiction-Four Propositions in Form of an Introduction (1975), Federman extracted the

qualities that combine this new fiction by pointing out its distinctive features represented by the

reading of fiction, shape of fiction, material of fiction, meaning of fiction.19 Foucault had his

own thoughts and vision of metafiction in (Las Meninas) “no gaze is stable, or rather, in the

natural furrow of the gaze piercing at a right angle through the canvas, subject and object, the

spectator and the model, reverse their roles to infinity”20. Metafiction like any other literary term

is characterized by certain aspects which can detect its existence,21 what metafiction stands for is

the relationship between fiction and reality which take us to another level or open up to further

issues like history, language, the power of knowledge and fiction of fiction.22

Metafiction can be so manipulative and effective in constructing any literary work.23 It can be

spotted by over plotting to show mysterious or multiple interpretations or even under plotting

and using language games.24 Language is a critical part of showing or reviving metafiction, as it

holds not just words and letters, but a sign of certain shapes or things in our minds, and it is no

more a fixed image or perception but rather different nonstop signifiers which led to several

views and interpretations.25 What metafiction really is, how to evoke the reader’s mind, it has no

more power over the reader to impose this view or that, this character or that plot, the writer is no

more an author, it is up to the reader’s imagination and interpretation as in the conflict or

17 Larry McCaffery. “Surfiction”. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. ( http://www.jstor.org/stable/1208047) 18 Ibid., p. 250. 19 Raymond Federman. Certification, Postmodern Essays. State University of NY Press, 1993, p. 40. 20 Michel Foucault. The Order of Things. Tavistock Publications, 1970, p. 5. 21 Ibid., p. 5. 22 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The theory and Practice of self-conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 3. 23 Ibid., p. 4. 24 Ibid., p. 4. 25 Ibid., p. 4.

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struggle of power between the reader and author.26 Waugh explained “the simple notion that

language passively reflects a coherent meaningful and objective is no longer tenable. Language

is an independent self-contained system which generates its own meaning”27. Metafiction

characteristics and technique may vary and it can be summarized as following:

Examining fictional systems, incorporating aspects of both theory and criticism, creating

biographies of imaginary writers, presenting and discussing fictional works of an imaginary

characters. Authors of metafiction often violate narrative levels by: intruding to comment on

writing, involving him or herself with fictional characters, directly addressing the reader, openly

questioning how narrative assumptions and conventions transform and filter reality, trying to

ultimately prove that no singular truths or meanings exist.28

Metafiction also uses unconventional and experimental techniques by: Rejecting conventional

plot, refusing to attempt to become “real life”, subverting conventions to transform “reality” into

a highly suspect concept, displaying reflexivity (the dimension present in all literary texts and

also central to all literary analysis, a function which enables the reader to understand the

processes by which he or she reads the world.29

26 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The theory and Practice of self-conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 4. 27 Ibid., p.3. 28 “Geneseo”. Web. 20 Jun. 2015. (http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes/Metafiction.html) 29 Ibid.,

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1.3. Historical Development of Postmodernism

It is known that by mid-20th century critics started or tried to interpret the term

postmodernism in the light of new experimental conceptions.30 To some critics, it is a

continuation and development of modernism, but for others, it is a radical break from

modernism. It is known that postmodernism came out after The Second World War to elevate the

post war fiction. The three terms “postmodern’, ‘postmodernity’ and ‘postmodernism” are in fact

“often used interchangeably: as a way of periodizing post-war developments”31. Borges and Ezra

Pound went so far by identifying the old text from postmodern prospective, according to

Hutcheon “postmodern’s initial concern is to de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our

way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as ‘natural’ (…) are

in fact ‘cultural’; made by us, not given to us”32

Postmodernism is dealing with literature and art in general. It is a necessity to talk about

modernism in brief to understand how postmodernism works and how it deals with literature and

past conventions. Postmodernism went through a transition using past conventions and

conceptions of modernism, which mainly constitute the new genre.33 Georg Lukacs, (Hungarian

Marxist philosopher) in his The Ideology of Modernism (1958) mentioned the general

characteristics of modernist fiction as follows:

1) Characters who are thrown into existence 2) Hostile, chaotic, incomprehensible, and meaningless world 3) Historicity 4) Static view of life and humankind 5) Subjective reality and truth as the only reality and truth 6) Isolation, alienation, and solitude 7) "Angst," nausea, and despair 8) The negation and unalterability of outward reality 9) The fragmentation of the self and of totality 10) Obsession with psychopathology 11) Ultimately, a nihilistic depiction of nothingness.34

30 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson Longman, 2005, p. 197. 31 Ibid., p. 198. 32 Naile Sarmasik. “Postmodern Fairy Godmothers”, Atilm Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 2012, p. 133. 33 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The theory and Practice of self-conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 4. 34 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s Metafictional Commentary on Contemporary Philosophy”, Iowa State University, 1987, p. 6.

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Those characteristics mentioned above are not here to point out the differences and

similarities between modernism and postmodernism, but to show the functionality of

postmodernism. Lukacs censured modernism as it is, being taken only with individuals, leaving

the society without any concern.35 Lukacs said “Once a commitment to the realities of the age is

refused, human content disappears”36. So the modernist seems to be lacking in things like the

contrast between abstract and concrete, potentiality to inwardness, subjectivity, and solitary self-

consciousness.37 Lukacs claimed “human personality must necessarily disintegrate”38. We could

infer that Lukacs believes there should be a match between the personality and the world which

is fictionally demonstrated by a “negation of outward reality” that “is present in almost all

modernist literature”39. As a result, modernism is presented with psychopathology and with

esoteric and inexplicable reality.40 Lukacs said modernist literature “denies the typical”41 which

is related to the idea that modernism should disintegrate the character and reality, instead “it

illuminates, magnifies, and individualizes until the work of art is larger than life, until the

character or the fictional world presented is more "real" than reality”42. Modernism is also

described as “limits totality to a narrow view which is recreated until it is the exaggerated and

intensified subjective vision of reality as expressed by that individual artist”43. Lukacs furthers

his claim that modernism distorts “perspective” to represent the human kind as the reality of

existence, because it emphasizes subjectivity, and at the same time it believes that there is no

single work which revealed the larger totality.44 As a result modernism does not try to be

objective but rather insist on being subjective recreations of life as the author sees it. 45

35 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s Metafictional Commentary on Contemporary Philosophy”, Iowa State University, 1987, p. 10. 36 György Lukács. Realism In Our Time: Literature And the Class Struggle. Harper & Row, 1964, p. 66. 37 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s Metafictional Commentary on Contemporary Philosophy”, Iowa State University, 1987, p. 10. 38 György Lukács. Realism In Our Time: Literature And the Class Struggle. Harper & Row, 1964, p. 25. 39 Ibid., p. 25. 40 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s metafictional commentary on contemporary philosophy”, Iowa State University, 1987, p. 10. 41 György Lukács. Realism In Our Time: Literature And the Class Struggle. Harper & Row, 1964, p. 43. 42 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s Metafictional Commentary on Contemporary Philosophy”. Iowa State University, 1987, p. 11. 43 Ibid., p. 11. 44 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s Metafictional Commentary on Contemporary Philosophy”. Iowa State University, 1987, p. 11. 45 Ibid., p. 11.

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Ihab Hassan pointed out that it “contrasts modernist dehumanization of art with the

postmodernist sense of the dehumanization of the planet and the end of man”46. Modernist

writers characterized by courageous action, although it is tragic, most of time, on the other hand

postmodernists characterized emptiness or decentering. 47 Hassan proved with a very good

example in his Paracriticisim (1985) of postmodernism, It includes “anti-elitism, anti-

authoritarianism, diffusion of ego”48. Art became more of a common thing; it does not follow

certain rules or conduct, meaning no more predictable and beauty, aesthetics are rejected.49

What is postmodern fiction? John Barth said “God was not a bad novelist, only he was a

realist”50. After the mid20th century a good amount of experimental fiction began to spread in

North America. It is known as (avant-garde) literature or anti-realist, not to mention the term

metafiction or postmodern fiction; the names may vary from surfiction, superfiction and

parafiction but ends up with the term metafiction.51

Linda Hutcheon’s views on metafiction in A Poetics of Postmodernism (1988), Her approach

to theorize postmodernism which followed Ihab Hassan and quoted from him as follows:

“clearly, then, the time has come to theorize the term postmodernism, if not define it, before it

fades from an awkward neologism to derelict cliché without ever attaining to the dignity of the

cultural concept”52. She investigated everything related to the term postmodernism. Hutcheon

believes it is necessary to know what is postmodernism, by drawing specific examples in realms

such as architecture, literature, painting and so,53 which she believes is “going specific was the

best way to avoid polemical generalization, which seems will lead to be an easy catch, to those

who stand against such progress”54. Hutcheon also argued that postmodernism is a “Perhaps this

is an appropriate condition, for postmodernism is a phenomenon whose mode is resolutely

contradictory as well as unavoidably political”55. Postmodernism is always connected with, or

46 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson Longman, 2005, p. 198. 47 Ibid., p. 198. 48 Ihab Hassan. Paracriticisim: Seven Speculation of The Times. University of Illinois, 1984, p. 55. 49 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson Longman, 2005, p. 199. 50 John Barth. The Friday Book. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. p. 23. 51 Timothy Charles Lord. “Postmodernism and Donald Barthelme’s Metafictional Commentary on Contemporary Philosophy”, Iowa State University, 1987, p. 22. 52 Ihab Hassan. Exploring Postmodernism. John Benjamins, 1990, p.18. 53 Linda Hutcheon. Poetics of Postmodernism. Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 1. 54 Ibid., p. 1. 55 Linda Hutcheon. The Politics of Postmodernism. Routledge, 2004, p. 12.

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described as breaking away from history, or from the past. In other ways it is not a denial, or

even the other way, named nostalgic but rather a critical revisiting,56 which is one of the ironical

aspects of postmodernism, historiographic metafiction according to Hutcheon it is a kind of

fiction that “those well-known and popular novels which are both intensely self-reflexive and yet

paradoxically also lay claim (assert one’s right) to historical events and personage” 57 .

Historiographic metafiction includes: “Three domains of literature, history and theory that is, its

theoretical self-awareness of history and fiction as human constructs (Historiographic

Metafiction) has made a ground for its rethinking and reworking of the form and contents of the

past”58. It can be said in another way that historiographic metafiction is a rework or reshaping of

some factual, realties but not denying them.

Lyotard, a postmodernist, unlike his modernist predecessors, Joyce and Eliot, criticized the

mega or master narratives of the modernists,59 who believed that value and aesthetics

stabilization is necessary for a healthy environment to maintain order, which seems to have no

solid ground,60 Lyotard called it master narrative. He pointed out that postmodernism is

characterized by skepticism towards meta-narrative, and less about predetermined meaning.61

Meta-narrative came from the notion of consensus as Linda Hutcheon called it, she assumed that

“whatever narratives or systems that once allowed us to think we could unproblematically and

universally define public agreement which have now been questioned by an acknowledgment of

differences___in theory and in artistic practices”62.

Hutcheon explained what postmodernism challenged. She pointed out “all kinds of fields fell

under the hammer of postmodernism from media to university from museum to theaters by

stripping out art or old conventions to challenge those institutions which are considered to be as

house hold”63. This gives us some clues on how postmodernism demolished the known

borderline between the genres and art itself, even the relationship between novel, poetry, music

56 Linda Hutcheon. Poetics of Postmodernism. Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 4. 57 Ibid., p. 5. 58 Poul Houe. Documentarism in Scandinavian Literature. Rodepi, 1997, p. 34. 59 Jean-Francois Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester University Press, 1984, p. 10. 60 Ibid., p. 10. 61 Ibid., p. 10. 62 Linda Hutcheon. Poetics of Postmodernism. Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 7. 63 Ibid., p. 9.

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and films, for example poetry became more in common with music, rather than with the poetry

of the past.64 Hutcheon pointed out that “the borders between literary genres have become

fluid”65. But there are still some segments that have remained unchanged as a distinctive feature

for this or that type of art, so there is no simple unproblematic merging.66

64 Linda Hutcheon. Poetics of Postmodernism. Taylor & Francis, 2004, p. 9. 65 Ibid., p. 9. 66 Ibid., p. 9.

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1.4. Use of Metafiction and Leading Figures

Since the shift to postmodernism and the rise of metafiction, parody, historiographic

metafiction, many names showed up and seized the moment and worked their way throw

clearing up this new form.67 Definitely those figures are well known for their achievements and

contributions to literature. Who led or who are the most prominent leading figures who left their

print in this form.

Metafiction was first coined by Gass (in Gass 1970) but this date or this period was not the

birth of metafiction. 68 Years before, Federman called it surfiction and it was obvious that

Federman revived the novel and presented a new form to the public.69 Waugh pointed out how

metafiction works, or what it does, which is defined by the novel itself, the novel instability,

which ironically merged with the world instabilities70 and what metafiction does is “Flaunts,

exaggerated and thus exposes the foundation of this instability”71.

Metafiction often “examining fictional system, incorporating aspects of both theory and

criticism, creating biographies of imaginary writers, presenting and discussing fictional works of

an imaginary character”72. A very good is Auster’s City of Glass (1985) which is mainly about

an imaginary writer who played the role of an imaginative detective.

Authors of metafiction often violate the narratives level by: “intruding to comment on writing,

involving his or her self with fictional character, directly addressing the reader, openly

questioning how narrative assumptions and conventions transform and filter reality, trying to

ultimately prove that no singular truths or meaning exist”73 . Federman’s To whom it May

concern would be the best example for the points above as the novel is semi-autobiographical

and in some parts its very obvious there is a direct engagement with the reader. Metafiction also

uses unconventional and experimental techniques by:

67 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 4. 68 Santiago Juan-Navarro. Archival Reflections: Postmodern Fiction of the Americas. Bucknell University press, 2000, p. 40. 69 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 5. 70 Ibid., p. 5. 71 Ibid., p. 5. 72 Jacek Barcicki. “Democratic Metafiction: Self-Conscious Narrative Strategies Transposed from Fiction to Film”, Warsaw University, 2002, p. 26. 73 “Geneseo”. Web. 20 Jun. 2015. (http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes/Metafiction.html)

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Rejecting conventional plot, refusing to attempt to become “real life”, subverting conventions to transform reality into a highly suspect concept, flaunting and exaggerating foundations of their instability., displaying reflexivity (the dimensions present in all literary text and also to all literary analysis, functions which enable the reader to understand the process by which he or she reads the world as text.74

Metafiction drew quite a good number of critics and thinkers to look at. By the time a

number of names came up to the surface to stand as pillars for this new form and made clear that

we are now at the dawn of a new age,75 the age of change and innovation without any boundaries

and rules.76 It might look unfair to put those leading figures in sequence because each one of

them is a distinctive character, so there is no first and second but rather a demonstration of their

contributions and impact on literature, theory in general and fiction or metafiction.

Raymond Federman (1928-2009)

Federman was born in France 1928. He comes from a Jewish family who moved to death

camps in The Second World War.77 Only Federman survived the incident. After the war he

moved to the US, in 1947 he served in the army in Korea and Japan, then he studied at Columbia

University, he got his PhD (comparative literature) on Samuel Beckett. Federman at that time

was not recognized or neglected to his role in contemporary literature, he brought new life to the

fiction and novel in 1960’s.78 One of his achievements was that he wrote four books on criticism

of Beckett, three collections of essays, articles and translations.79

His first novel Double or Nothing seems well received by the public, he got several honors

and awards, other novels Amer Eldorado (1974), Take it or leave It (1976), The Voice in The

Closet (1979), The Twofold vibration (1982), Smile on Washington Square (1985), To Whom it

May concern, and others. His novels got popular, it was translated into many languages,

Federman spread prose in unconventional fashion, in a way that touches our hearts as our souls

74 “Geneseo”. Web. 20 Jun. 2015. (http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes/Metafiction.html) 75 Linda Hutcheon. A Poetics of Postmodernism. Routledge, 2003, p. 6. 76 Ibid., p. 6. 77 Raymond Federman. “Raymond Federman published and unpublished work”. Web. 22 Jun. 2015. (http://www.federman.com/rfpub.htm#books) 78 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fictions. State University of New York Press, 2012, p.1. 79 Raymond Federman. “Raymond Federman published and unpublished work”. Web. 22 Jun. 2015. (http://www.federman.com/rfpub.htm#books)

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by his writing style described as self-referential and playfully manipulated.80 Jeffery R. Di Leo

commented on Federman’s contributions to literature and novel:

They reveal his work to be a rich source for those invested in contemporary cultural studies and literary theory, and show it as contributing to some of the most fascinating and challenging issues faced by the humanities today. Collectively, they establish Federman’s place in an age that has lost interest in narrative innovation as significant in itself and has instead redirected its attention to the cultural, historical, and political powers of fictional discourse.81

Leo in his book Federman’s Fictions (2012) explained how and why critics (contemporary)

“are less concerned with distinguishing ‘literature’ from ‘theory’ and ‘fiction’ from ‘reality’, and

more interested in discussing the identity, consumption, regulation, and production of text within

the culture. Theory and critics have finally caught up with Federman”82 this might be put in

simple explanation that Federman works proved to be very powerful and unique. Leo goes so far

by describing Federman’s approach to fiction and criticism as post-theoretical and post-fictional,

that might be little radical but if we take a look at Federman’s works, achievements and

contributions to the academic disciplines and critical discourse, we can admit that Federman

changed the face and soul of literature, Federman as a person and his works cannot be

comprehended by any discipline or discourse. 83 Leo again made Federman’s fiction like no

other in the history of literature:

It continually has a way of sliding quickly into other areas of critical concern at the point when one feels as though one has captured it. And while the essays is this collection do their best to “contain” it, one always has the sense that the task is ultimately futile. Federman is ---and is not ---- a theorist. Is ----and is not ---- fictionalist. Is----and is not ---- a philosopher (of language).84

80 Raymond Federman. Shhh The Story of a Childhood. Open Road Media, 2013, p. 7. 81 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fictions. State University of New York Press, 2012, p. 2. 82 Ibid., p. 3. 83 Ibid., p. 3. 84 Ibid., p. 3.

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That made Federman fell into no category or distinctive feature, many may disagree with Leo,

but Federman is for Leo our premier post theorist and post fictionalist.85

William Howard Gass (1924-)

W.H. Gass or William Howard Gass was born in 1924 North Dakota, USA, he climbed the

steps of science till mid 50’s when he became a Professor of Philosophy.86 He received many

awards for his works and contributions to philosophy and literature. He has many critical studies,

like Fiction and the Figures of Life (1970), Finding a From: Essays (1997), novels like

Omensetter’s Luck (1966), The Tunnel (1999).87 Gass described himself as a writer of prose

rather than a novelist or a storyteller, not that he undermine them, but he is interested in

problems of style, his fiction is experimental constructions like molding the language and words,

sculpture like, when he made his statue of ordinary stone.88

Adam Kirsch (American poet and critic) in his article explained that “a writer who values

style above all will find that the most important element in good writing is not architectonics”89

which means by that his emphasis must be not on the large structure, the deep theme, the buried

symbol – but rather the sentence, Gass argued “Neither story (which can be told in many media

and in many ways) nor meaning (which can be expressed with similar flexibility) are active

elements in literary work”90 what really matters is the words themselves and the sentence is the

mold that contain those words, and each sentence is a complete and a new display of mystery.91

One more thing to know about Gass is that his prose gets so overactive, as he explores the

philosophical concepts and the way he approaches the Greek conceptions of form, mimesis and

metaphor.92 So we have a philosopher experienced for a long time which allowed him to evoke

Plato and Aristotle’s unconventional view in a brilliant way.93 Kirsch in his article pointed out

how difficult Gass can be, when he goes excessively figurative and hard to follow and

85 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fictions. State University of New York Press, 2012, p. 3. 86 Harvey Lee Hix. Understanding William H. Gass. University of South Carolina press, 2002, p. 1. 87 “Biography”. Web. 15 Jul. 2015. (http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4346/Gass-William-H-oward.html) 88 Ibid. 89 Adam Kirsch. “William Gass’s Lifelong Attachment to Literature”. Web. 17 May. 2015. (http://nyti.ms/1UGdFbG) 90 William H. Gass. Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts. Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, p. 313. 91 William H. Gass. Conversation with William H. Gass. University Press of Mississippi, 2003, p. 8. 92 Adam Kirsch. “William Gass’s Lifelong Attachment to Literature”. Web. 17 May. 2015. (http://nyti.ms/1UGdFbG) 93 Ibid.,

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understand, which may require a few reading to catch up or figure out what he means. For

example: “Animal magnetism is a date drug, good looks are everything and diamonds are

forever”.94

John Barth (1930-)

John Simmons Barth was born in Cambridge, Maryland 1930. He was dreaming to become a

jazz composer and he did attend Juilliard Scholl of Music in NY.95 Barth soon realized that jazz

was not his thing, in fact, he was good in it, but not in a distinguishable way, he then gave up

Jazz and found out that he was awarded a scholarship to John Hopkins University.96 Surrounded

by books, Barth became very interested in 10th century Sanskrit Ocean of story (1924) and Sir

Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights (1900).97 Its seems that Barth developed his theory style based

on these two stories as it is sometimes called “Frame-tale” which contains a series of stories

within stories.98 Barth drew on this example, as he experimented with writing self-reflexive

fiction. As he reasoned in The Friday Book (1984) “we tell stories and listen to them because we

live stories and live in them … if this is true, then not only is all fiction, fiction about fiction but

all the fiction about fiction is in fact fiction about life”99.

Barth’s novels came in pairs or as he called them twins. Ziegler pointed out that “each pair of

novels functions according to some principle: the first exhausts a particular genre, the second

transcends or replenishes it”100. His first novel The Floating Opera (1956) got the National Book

Award in 1956. Lost In The Fun House (1968) was Barth’s second novel, got the same award in

1968. Both these novels were considered Barth postmodern masterpieces and still remained

influential.101

94 Adam Kirsch. “William Gass’s Lifelong Attachment to Literature”. Web. 17 May. 2015. (http://nyti.ms/1UGdFbG) 95 David Morrell. John Barth: An Introduction. David Morrell, 2015, p. 10. 96 Ibid., p. 11. 97 Victoria Townsend. “Biography”. Web. 16 May. 2015. (http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Barth__John.html) 98 David Morrell. John Barth: An Introduction. David Morrell, 2015, p. 56. 99 John Barth. The Friday Book. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, p. 236. 100 Heide Ziegler. John Barth. Methuen & Co, 1987, p. 17. 101 Victoria Townsend. “Biography”. Web. 16 May. 2015. (http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Barth__John.html)

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Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

Derrida was one of the greatest well known philosophers during the 20th century; he was also

described as a productive one.102 Away from old philosophical movements like (phenomenology,

existentialism etc.) he developed his own strategy called (deconstruction) during the 60’s which is

considered equivalent to a critique of the western philosophy.103

What is deconstruction about? It is the analysis of specific text, in other words, as Jack

Reynolds puts it, “it seeks to expose and then subvert the various binary oppositions that

undergird our dominant ways of thinking the presence/ absence, speech/writing”104. Derrida’s

deconstruction does not neglect meaning, but rather find the meaning hidden within that literal

one even between footnotes and shed the light on those small corners.105 It gave the novelists

way to understand the narrative, it gave metafiction another dimension Waugh explained “The

paranoia that permeates the metafictional writing of the sixties and seventies is therefore slowly

giving way to celebration, to the discovery of new forms”106

Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998)

Lyotard was born in Vincennes, France on August 10, 1924. He went to Paris Lycee Buffon

and Louis-le-Grand to be a Dominican monk,107 a painter, historian or a novelist but then he

changed to philosophy. 108 He studied literature and philosophy in the Sorbonne, his M.A

dissertation was on Indifference as an Ethical Notion, 109 until The Second World War, he

considered himself as a poetics introspective and led a solitary way of living, but the war had its

own impact on him, shaking his way of life and thoughts.110 He worked as first–aid volunteer

during the liberation fight in the streets of Paris in 1944, and apparently he gave up his idea of

indifference seeking and investigating on reality. The Postmodern Condition (1979) brought him 102 Jack Reynolds. “Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)”. Web. 15 Jun. 2015. (http://www.iep.utm.edu/derrida/) 103 Simon Morgan Wortham. The Derrida Dictionary. A&C Black, 2010, p. 103. 104 Elia R. G. Pusterla. The Credibility of Sovereignty-The Political Fiction of a Concept. Springer, 2015, p. 81. 105 Jacques Derrida. Writing and difference. University of Chicago, 1978, p. 5. 106 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 9. 107 Derek Robbins. Jean-Francois Lyotard. Sage, 2004, p. 3. 108 Ibid., p. 4. 109 Derek Robbins. Jean-Francois Lyotard. Sage, 2004, p. 19. 110 Wikipedia contributors. “Jean-François Lyotard.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 May. 2016. Web. 13 May. 2016.

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worldwide fame, in the 80’s and 90’s as he gave a good amount of lectures abroad.111 He was a

professor of French and Italian at California University and founding member and sometimes

president of the College International de Philosophe.112 Also he was a visiting professor at many

universities including John Hopkins, and the University of California.113 Lyotard was considered

one of the founding fathers of postmodernism, which he announced in his The Postmodern

Condition,114 According to him “postmodernism favors seeing the world in more rhetorical terms

as a field of contending smaller narratives, where people strive to make their point of view and

their interests paramount by making their narratives more convincing” 115 Lyotard also

questioned or he was skeptical towards master-narratives which were in decline, he challenged

any myths or legends based on religion which are applied to the social relation of any society,

Lyotard argued narratives had lost their credibility, he define postmodernism “as incredulity

towards metanarratives”116

Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Foucault was a major figure during the 20th century in the sequential waves, the structuralist

and post-structuralist.117 He lived to be the most intellectual prominent figure in France118. His

main contributions to postmodernism were in shaping, understanding of power which is used as

a tool of duress (subjection), he acknowledged that power is everywhere 119 “diffused and

embodied in discourse”120.

His work marks a radical departure from previous mode of conceiving power and cannot be easily integrated with previous ideas, as a power is diffuse rather that concentrated, embodied and enacted rather than

111 Claire Nouvet. Minima Memoria: In the Wake of Jean Francois Lyotard. Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 14. 112 Ibid., p. 10. 113 Ibid., p. 10. 114 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson, 2005, p. 205. 115 Jean-François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester University Press, 1984, p. 27. 116 Ibid., p.24. 117 David Macey. The Lives of Michel Foucault. Vintage Books, 1995, p. 12. 118 Jonathan Gaventa. “Power after Lukes: An overview of theories of power since Lukes and their application to development”. Web. 22 Jun. 2015. (http://www.powercube.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/power_after_lukes.pdf) 119 Ibid., 120 Michel Foucault. The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought. Penguin Books, 1991, p. 33.

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possessed, discourse rather than purely coercive, and constitutes agents rather than being deployed by them.121

Power is the invention of people who give it and make it legitimate, it is neither an agency nor

a structure, but it came from everywhere.122 Foucault approached power and knowledge as

power constituted through an accepted form of knowledge. 123 The relationship between the

author and the text became suspicious “what does it matter who is speaking”124 Foucault’s

thoughts on writing today:

we can say that today's writing has freed itself from the theme of expression. Referring only to itself; but without being restricted to the confines of its interiority, writing is identified with its own unfolded exteriority. This means that it is an interplay of signs arranged less according to its signified content than according to the very nature of the signifier. Writing unfolds like a game [jeu] that invariably goes beyond its own rules and transgresses its limits.125

Foucault was simply aiming to set the text free, which means creating a living thing

(creature) which speaks for itself, creating a vacant space of endless meanings, Foucault’s

emphasis is on the notion of death to subside the author's narrative or discourse. 126 The

astonishing effort of Scheherazade’s narrative in The Thousand and One Nights (1704) worked

out very well to delay the reckoning day, her effort renewed every night just to stay alive, it is

the same text which was used to give life to the author’s work and make him immortal. It has

now become a tool of death, the author’s murderer, the relationship between writing and death

represented by the erasure of writing subjects, (individual characteristics), all devices that the

writer sets are now working against him, the end was a writer without a mark which was reduced

to nothing, and it’s time to assume dead in the writing.127

121 Jonathan Gaventa. “Power after Lukes: An overview of theories of power since Lukes and their application to development”. Web. 22 Jun. 2015. (http://www.powercube.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/power_after_lukes.pdf) 122 Michel Foucault. Power/Knowledge. Pantheon Books, 1980, p. 81. 123 Ibid., p. 81. 124 Michel Foucault. Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology. The New Press NY, 1998, p. 205 125 Ibid., p. 206. 126 Ibid., p. 206. 127 Ibid., p. 207.

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Jeanette Winterson (1959-)

She published her first novel Orange Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) when she was only 25

years old which was never easy for her as she was raised up by adopted pentecostal parents in

northern England in Accrington, Lancashire.128 Jeanette was considered as one of the original

British fiction writers who emerged during the 80’s and the best young woman writer.129 In her

first novel, Orange Are Not The Only Fruit Winterson embodied or reflected her own childhood,

how she was adopted and why, she left home at the age of 16 after falling in love with a girl.130

Definitely, it was fiction and fiction does not incarnate the writer’s life at all. In fact, Winterson’s

story was more catastrophic.131

Winterson has a long list of works to be proud of, at least for her, starting from Orang…, The

Passion (1987), Sexing the Cherry (1989), Art And Lies (1994), Boating for Beginners, and The

World and Other Places (1998).132 Winterson did not only write novels, she edited some works

like Midsummer Night (2009) a collection of stories inspired by Opera which commemorated the

75th anniversary of the Glyndebourne Festival of Opera,133 Winterson makes an adaptation of her

first novel for the BBC, wrote a screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2, edited a series

of novels by Virginia Woolf,134 she also worked on reviewing articles in the newspapers and

journals even radio broadcasting.135

Winterson thinks of identity as an entryway and exit, and those who adopted it left with a gap

or a hole which cannot be filled, even though we cannot forget or deny its existence.136 Proctor

128 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 35. 129 Ibid., p. 35. 130 Carmela Ciuraru. “The Essential Jeanette Winterson”. Web. 2 Jul. 2015. (http://www.biographile.com/best-jeanette-winterson-book/831/) 131 Carmela Ciuraru. “The Essential Jeanette Winterson”. Web. 2 Jul. 2015. (http://www.biographile.com/best-jeanette-winterson-book/831/) 132 James Procter. “Jeanette Winterson”. Web. 3 July. 2015. (http://literature.britishcouncil.org/jeanette-winterson) 133 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 33. 134 Ibid., p. 152. 135 Ibid., p. 35. 136 Ibid., p. 168.

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explained that “it’s a hole in Winterson’s work that generated an art of disguise, masquerade, and

cover up. The gaping wound is not so much sutured as it is bandaged in Winterson’s writing”137.

We can notice that orphan figures came often in her works Sexing The Cherry one of her

masterpieces which is about a girl found in the banks of the River Thames taken in by a strange

woman (dog women) who is very much like Mrs. Winterson,138 in the Power Book we have the

narrator Ali, who was adopted by strict religious parents.139 Lately, we have The Stone Gods

(2007), which is about an orphan Billie Cruse who was rejected by her young mother. It is an

adaptation of one of her early novels, which emphasized a deep, unhealed wound, 140 she

expressed that in her The Stone Gods “my mother’s body split open and it was something worth

salvaging and with me it seems that nobody did”141.

Some people who have never crossed the land they were born in, have travelled all over the world. The journey is not linear, it is always back and forth, denying the calendar, the wrinkles of the body. The self is not contained in any moment or any place, but it is only at the intersection of moment and place that the self might for a moment, be seen vanishing through a door.142

Definitely the longing for real home left a big mark. What is really obvious in Winterson’s

fiction is about time flying between present, past and future;143 or it might be called time travel

even beyond space and time. Sexing the Cherry might be a very good example which gives the

sense of traveling and home.144

137 James Procter. “Jeanette Winterson”. Web. 3 July. 2015. (http://literature.britishcouncil.org/jeanette-winterson) 138 Jonathan Noakes. Jeanette Winterson: The Essential Guide. Random house, 2012, p. 52. 139 Jeanette Winterson. The PowerBook. Random House, 2013, p. 23. 140 Jeanette Winterson. The Stone Gods. Random House, 2007, p. 30. 141 Ibid., p. 147. 142 Jeanette Winterson. Sexing The Cherry. Grove Press NY, 2007, p. 87. 143 Susana Onega Jean. Jeanette Winterson. Manchester University Press, 2006, p. 78. 144 Ibid., p. 78.

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1.5. Novel and Metafiction

In this part, we will go through the novel briefly, describing its start within its

circumstances, genres, characteristics. Finally, we will highlight the impact of metafiction in

reviving the novel.

The novel literally started to take shape in England during the 18th century.145 England made

a progress in the novel because writers in France were essentially oriented to the Court.146 In the

mid-18th century the novel became very popular as a new form of literature,147 and somehow

several factors came together to give the writers a new passion to write novels as it became more

in demand by reading in public.148

In the beginning of the 18th century the public was increasingly interested in realism. It is the

desire to know how people make their way of life, whether it is a good or bad experience, people

wanted to see a reflection of their lives, and it seems that the novel was the best literary form

which can reflect everyday life.149

Defoe, Richardson (The father of English novel), Fielding and Tobias Smollett who was the

best known for his picaresque novels, and Sterne who wrote Tristram Shandy (1759), which was

described as “the strange work of a very strange man”150. After Sterne, the novel developed in

many directions, the major once were: sentiment, gothic novel, doctrine and didacticism, and the

novel of manners.151 There are many names that left their mark on the novel throughout history,

especially women writers like Bronte’s, Jane Austen, Jeorge Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Virginia

Woolf, Winterson and many others.152

Different movements float on the surface like the impressionism, expressionism, imagism,

futurism, Dadaism, surrealism … Etc.,153 it was during the modernism novel started to take

another shape which broke the old conventions, it challenged reality which is at the roots of 145 Ian p. Watt. The Rise of the Novel. University of California Press. 2001, p. 9. 146 Ibid., p. 58. 147 Ibid., p. 10. 148 Ibid., p. 10. 149 Ibid., p. 32. 150 N. Jayapalan. History of English Literature. Atlantic Publishers, 2001, p. 180. 151 Ibid., p. 181. 152 Ibid., p. 282. 153 Peter Childs. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Term. Routledge, 2006, p. 145.

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realism,154 the change has its reasons, World War One raised the skeptical thought towards what

really exist, we have the emergence of psychoanalysis and Marxism.155

In one hand, modernism had its own characteristics which distinguished it from realism,

things like the various ways of capturing reality, fragmented plots, variety of narrative voices and

active readers.156 On the other hand, we left realism and old conventions represented by the

conventional structure of the plot, omniscient narrator, critical perspective and passive reader.157

Modern novels are characterized by their stream of consciousness which was developed by the

psychologist William James. 158 He called it then the pre-speech level, which means: the

thoughts, memories and feeling that exist in our mind, are not monitored rationally, controlled or

logically ordered, and are formed by free associations.159 Modernist novels also known for its

pessimism, disillusionment and skepticism, all these characteristics paved the way to a new age

of literature,160 a new kind of truth, identity, beauty, art, it is postmodernism.161

Many theorists and enthusiasts believe that novel has been fading away and, it is no longer

embodied the current situation, especially after The Second World War.162 Some argued that it

has been viewed as a rejection of modernism, but the answer is very simple, we cannot reject

history but rather question or react, so we can claim it was a reaction to modernism.163 It was a

revolution in all its aspects and if we take a deep look into them: poststructuralism, metafiction,

the absence of the center, questioning meta-narrative, self-reflexivity, all contributed to the

revival of the novel.

So what Metafiction does in comparison with modernist fiction, it reflects on its own status

by describing its capacity and thus denoting to all self-reflexive utterances which thematize the

fictionality.164 Hutcheon pointed out, “fiction that includes within itself reflections on its own

154 Peter Childs. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Term. Routledge, 2006, p. 145. 155 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson, 2005, p. 116. 156 Ibid., p. 34. 157 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 6. 158 Frederick Bauer. William James on the Stream of Consciousness. iUniverse, Inc., 2009, p. 1. 159 Ibid., p. 1. 160 Raman Selden. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson, 2005, p. 205. 161 Ibid., p. 206. 162 Ibid., p. 206. 163 Ibid., p. 206. 164 Linda Hutcheon. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980, p.1.

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fictional identity”165. Metafiction can be so tricky and fun at the same time, unable to distinguish

reality and fiction,166 Sukenick’s short story about a character named Raymond Federman, after

giving the main points he seems contemplating by saying:

A great story, but what's the plot? And which one of the above is the hero? And where is the verisimilitude? And when is the beginning, the middle, the end? And why this irrational discontinuity be related in sequential sentences from left to right, left to right to the bottom of the printed page? And how in the name of probability can it called real.167

He considered Federman’s life a great story and so complicated to determine which Federman

is the hero.168 This kind of transition explains how far metafiction is and complicated from

modernism, and has boundless limitation of meaning.169

165 Linda Hutcheon. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980, p. 1. 166 Ibid., p. 1. 167 Ronald Sukenick. Mosaic Man. University of Alabama Press, 1999, p. 197. 168 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. State University of NY Press, 2011, p. 5. 169 Ibid., p. 5.

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1.6. Metafiction in Winterson’s Works

Winterson’s fiction has a distinctive taste and different boundaries. Most of her themes touch

on love, life, the universe, and storytelling, from this point of view, we will discuss how she

interpreted her surroundings by using playfulness, nonlinear style, and even science fiction.170

Winterson was described by some critics besides her interest or her key themes, love… etc.

as an obsessed writer by nature of boundaries or desire.171 Peter Childs book on Contemporary

Novelists (2012) calls Winterson an “uneven but consistently interesting writer, whose work

evinces a constancy of theme and focus, despite an enormous variety of style and setting, that

makes each book appear a variation on familiar preoccupations teasing away at them in fresh

ways using new ideas”172 Childs also pointed out that Winterson used the triangular love plot,

which embodied the social constructs, because it is the idea of love that is considered as a

precious possession. 173 Winterson’s themes exceed storytelling, which she always revisits

throughout her fiction.174 Childs denoted “to love differently, or re-imagining and re-mapping

life”175. Here Childs emphasizes that Winterson’s themes reached beyond universal boundaries

“writing just before Lighthousekeeping (2004) appeared, he advances the view that a claim might

be made for her recent work expressing a new maturity as she explores love’s triangularity using

art science or technology” 176 . Sonya explained that it still needs a theoretical approach to

interpret Winterson’s works and her treatment of love, history and storytelling.177

After giving an overview of her work to date, he (Childs) focuses on what he sees as the key works: Orange and Written on the Body__for the work it does in summing up Winterson’s thematic concerns across her whole career and placing them in a universalist framework that often gets overlooked in more highly charged and particularist theoretical readings.178

170 Peter Childs. Contemporary Novelists. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 274. 171 Ibid., p. 275. 172 Ibid., p. 260. 173 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 166. 174 Ibid., p. 166. 175 Peter Childs. Contemporary Novelists. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 261. 176 Ibid., p. 260. 177 Ibid., p. 167. 178 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 166.

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Onega indicated the importance of creative women and linked Winterson with Woolf and

others:

Onega highlights the importance of distinctive female trajectory that begins, once again, with Woolf, and include Angela Carter, Sara Maitland and Marina Warner. In a claim with which I concur, Onega sees Winterson fulfilling Woolf’s prophetic dream of a new novelistic created by women with intellectual and material freedom.179

Onega denoted that Winterson had a continuing interest in the same topics of the early novel,

which she depicted and constantly revising the same ideas and subjects,180 but from different

approaches to free the mind from any obstacles social or generic as a result, 181 Onega

concluded:

This definition of love, which allows for individual freedom and rejects dogma, accepts alterity in the other as well as in oneself and refuses to draw social and generic distinctions, is the essential element in the novels that provides the stimulus for the characters’ life quests and confers meaning on their existence.182

Nowadays, critics are reconsidering Winterson’s works from another point of view

(postmodern exhaustion) Keulks argued that “this late phase (second phase) postmodernism ...

forswears the nihilism, ahistoricism and relativism of the earlier version, and that Winterson’s

recent fiction provides the re-coinstituted versions of history and mythology which restablilize

both the emotional present and the historical past”183 Winterson’s Lighthousekeeping (2004) is

seen by Gavin Keulks as a significant shift away from postmodern aesthetic that Winterson

pushed so far in The Power Book (2000).184 He also advised caution in any revaluation of

Winterson’s work along the realist postmodern axis. 185 “Although it is tempting to label

Lighthousekeeping a realist or at least anti-postmodernist text, the novel remains too tainted by

179 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 167. 180 Ibid., p. 167. 181 Ibid., p. 167. 182 Susana Onega. Jeanette Winterson. Manchester University Press, 2006, p.233. 183 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 167. 184 Ibid., p. 168. 185 Ibid., p. 167.

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metafiction and intertextuality to be so conveniently positioned. İts realism ultimately genuflects

to the grander disorder of textuality”186.

The works of Winterson have been viewed as a metaphor of roads and crossroads, it even

portrays big cities complicated junctions.187Winterson’s work does not fall into any category of

modern literature, the changing landscape, the city which has no limitation and the signpost is no

longer reliable.188

At sea and away from home in a creaking boat, with Tradescant sleeping beside me, there is a town I sometimes dream about, whose inhabitants are so cunning that to escape the insistence of creditors they knock down their houses in a single night and rebuild them elsewhere. So the number of buildings in the city is always constant but they are never in the same place from one day to the next.189

The city I come from is a changeable city. It is not always the same size. Streets appear and disappear overnight, new waterways force themselves over dry land.190

Winterson has a great interest in the issues of time and history, she believes that time is

associated with exploring the gender which she shown in other works, she also rejects the idea of

linear course of time. 191

Francisco and Sanchez explained that the novels of Winterson contained almost all the themes

that triggered the 80’s British fiction, by creating a road map planted in the main ideological

movements of its time.192 Francisco and Sanchez brought Waugh into discussion as she pointed

out that many postmodernist texts specifically stated their connection with late capitalism by

rejecting modernism and by breaking its conventional walls which used to limit fiction or the

autonomous work of art by using parody which according to Margaret A. Rose .193 Francisco and

Sanchez added:

186 Sonya Andermahr. Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 168. 187 Ibid., p. 95. 188 Ibid., p. 95. 189 Jeanette Winterson. Sexing the Cheery. Vintage, 2001, p. 42. 190 Jeanette Winterson. The Passion. Vintage, 2001, p. 79. 191 Jose Francisco. “Play and History in Jeanette Winterson “The Passion”. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. p. 97. ( http://www.jstor.org/stable/41054816) 192 Ibid., 193 Ibid.,

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Through their use of parody these novels express their dependence on former texts denying the idea of self-determination. In Boating For Beginners (1985) Winterson writes a parody of the Flood described in Genesis in which she incorporates all the voices of the 80s, Noah being a solid entrepreneur whose discourse sounds like Thatcherite rhetoric. Waugh names Jeanette Winterson among the women writers who have made use of postmodernist devices without completely adopting the apocalyptic tone of postmodern fiction.194

According to Margaret A. Rose in her book Parody// Meta-fiction (1979) she explained that

parody and metafiction are both connected, emphasizing that the role of parody is that of “meta-

fictional mirror to fiction” 195 parody then is a form of metafiction and both of them are

unseparated. Waugh shared the same thoughts on the relationship between the parody and

metafiction “metafiction represents a response to a crisis within the novel – to a need for self-

conscious parodic undermining in order to ‘defamiliarize’ fictional conventions that have

become both automatized and inauthentic, and to release new and more authentic forms”196

Sonia Front denoted in her book Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction

(2009) that Winterson created a kind of inharmonious time related topics, rejecting any linear

existence within space or time, for her, time understood through water imagery as a river or

sea.197 It seems that Winterson uses the fluidity of time and water, which reecho in timeless

floating subjectivity, characters, and cities.198 Front also added:

The concept is supported by the theories of new physics or virtual reality. The strategy, together with multiple narration, opens up the possibility to illustrate the plurality of the selves within the subject. The interest in the fragmentariness of identity.199

From this point we understand that Winterson aims at mixing even genres by multi-laying

texts, and even fluid mobile contradictory subjects.

Published in her website Winterson pointed out that she is interested in science and quantum

physics (Which question and investigate in quanta and time and ask is the time reversible?), it is

194 Jose Francisco. “Play and History in Jeanette Winterson “The Passion”. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. p. 96. ( http://www.jstor.org/stable/41054816) 195 Margaret A. Rose. Parody//meta-fiction. Croom Helm, 1979, p. 13. 196 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self- Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p.65. 197 Sonia Front. Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction. Peter Lang, 2009, p. 13. 198 Ibid., p. 13. 199 Ibid., p. 13.

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not just a hobby or some kind of interest, but she applies it to her novels especially when it

comes to the process of time.200 Winterson explained:

All of my books are preoccupied with time – it starts right back in Oranges in the Deuteronomy section. In Sexing the Cherry I use time vertically, not just horizontally, and in Gut Symmetries I wanted to explore the dimensionality of time. How do we understand time? What happens to the past? Does the future already exist? These are questions the book deals with, not because I hope to answer them, but as a way of adding to the puzzle.201

Horizontal means narrative structure, plot development, act and story climaxes. Vertical refers

to Question of/ to character interiority, e.g.: why did he she react that way, where does that

reaction come from, what was its genesis-a moment in their past.202

One of her comments on her novel Gut Symmetries (1997) where she explained how precise in

choosing the title as for Gut means Grand Unified Theory,203 which is the theory that science

wants to discover everything and also means gut instinct.204 As for Symmetries, she denoted that

it is the search for a perfect universe the one like ours but no problem.205 Winterson related this

to her theme of love and its impact on us when we fall into it. She commented on love “They

were letting off fireworks down at the waterfront, the sky exploding in grenades of color.

Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief

and total beauty – even for a moment – it is enough”206.

One needs to know about Winterson and how she perceives the world which came out

through an interview which Amazon made with her. She denoted that when we visited the past it

is not the same past we know,207 it is dependent or interdependent, it doesn't exist all packed up

200 Jose Francisco. “Play and History in Jeanette Winterson “The Passion”. Web. 8 Apr. 2015 ( http://www.jstor.org/stable/41054816) 201 Jeanette Winterson. “Gut Symmetries”. Web. 17 Aug. 2015. (http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/book/gut-symmetries) 202 James George. “The Horizontal and Vertical Axes of storytelling”. Web. 15 May 2016. (http://islanddrafts.blogspot.com.tr/2011/06/horizontal-and-vertical-axes-of.html) 203 Sonia Front. Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction. Peter Lang, 2009, p. 125. 204 Jeanette Winterson. “Gut Symmetries”. Web. 17 Aug. 2015. (http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/book/gut-symmetries) 205 Ibid., 206 Ibid., 207 Mia Lipman. “Author Interview @ Amazon with Jeanette Winterson” Online video clip. YouTube. Amazon Books, 29 Mar. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2015.

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and ready to be unfolded, we go there we interact with that narrative. When you start writing

about your life you realize how true that is 25 years passed since the Orange is the Only Fruit

which is a semi-autobiography,208 25 years later we are looking at Winterson’s world again and it

feels different. The facts are facts but it is always misleading because that is how we understand

it.209 Freud is one of the grand Marxists narratives, could never invent psychoanalysis if he could

not go back into the past drag it out and reinterpreted it and allowed that to free the present. The

past is always negotiable.210

1.7. Metafiction in Federman’s Works

This part will be more specific, as we will deal with Federman’s fiction and how he used it to

serve his purpose in presenting the most recognizable works in this new genre. We will discuss

how important Federman’s work is and how he approached reality by using the poststructural

method, and why his work became more important than before, and how Federman has

constructed the vision of life and fiction.

Di Leo in his article pointed out that during Federman’s time “to those interested in tracing

the development of American letters, such accounts neglect the range of his contributions to both

the contemporary critical and world literature canons contributions”211 explaining that “part of

the reason for this is that the discourses are necessary for appreciating the range of depth of his

achievement – discourse such as cultural studies and literary theory – have only recently reached

full maturation and institutional acceptance”212. He also added that “Federman’s writing became

more significant in a critical climate charged by discussions of the relationship between culture,

history, language, and narrative”213. To see Federman’s works first it need to be understood, and

that cannot be done without proper tools which Di Leo also addressed “Federman’s writing is an

208 Mia Lipman. “Author Interview @ Amazon with Jeanette Winterson” Online video clip. YouTube. Amazon Books, 29 Mar. 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2015. 209 Ibid., 210 Ibid., 211 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. State University of NY Press, 2011, p. 2. 212 Ibid., p. 2. 213 Ibid., p. 2.

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amazing resource to be grappled with through structuralist and/ or poststructuralist context”214.

Here, we would like to shade some light of what is meant by structuralism and poststructuralism

term has certain aspects to be understood, the signified is (concept image) then the signifier

(sound image) which we are after is used to represent or mirror things we know, but since the

distinctions between them becomes problematical for their roots, we believe that Federman’s

approach used this disturbance.215 Di Leo also pointed out that “the introduction of the signifier

“Federman” into the text opens up a vortex marked by endless circularity and infinite regress:

writing “Federman” by writing “Federman” by writing “Federman” by writing . . . (and so on, to

infinity)”216.

Federman’s works have recently been more powerful than before, the reason why, because

contemporary critics are less concerned about literature from theory and fiction from reality but

rather about identity, regulations and production of text.217 Leo said “Unlike many thinkers

today who can be contained by labels, discourses, and disciplines, Federman’s thoughts and

writing cannot and will not. It continually has a way of sliding quickly into other areas of

critical concern at the point when one feels as though one has captured it”218. Federman’s

fiction has been seen by many and has been considered as the highest level of fiction. Ronald

Sukenick, in his short story, he introduced us to his character “Raymond Federman” the

character’s life which is full of danger and adventure in one sentence:

One day, Federman, who must be twelve or thirteen at the time, is in the apartment with his family, poor, relatively recent immigrants to France, when the Germans come, he’s pushed into a closet by his mother, and suddenly he’s an orphan, a fugitive jumping from freight train to freight train, a farm laborer in the south of France, a factory worker in Detroit, a white named Frenchy in a black ghetto, a swim champ, a jazz musician, a paratrooper in Korea, a student in New York, a poet, a jock, a Ph.D., a gambler, a Casanova of note,

214 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. State University of NY Press, 2011, p. 3. 215 Paul Cobley. The Communication Theory Reader. Routledge, 1996, p. 216. 216 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. State University of NY Press, 2011, p. 126 217 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. State University of NY Press, 2011, p. 3. 218 Ibid., p. 3.

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a professor in California, a novelist in Buffalo, an honored literary guest in Germany.219

Sukenick commented on Federman’s fiction (life in fiction). To him Federman the bilingual

writer, critic, novelist, scholar and each one is more interesting than the other, so you cannot say

he is this but not that.220 Sukenick’s article A life in the Text addressed some of Federman’s or

what Sukenick called “their independent strands of discourse”221.

The human being is the product of many elements “Places and experience that have been

formative in the lives of us”222 the fundamental aspect of writing is the harmony between place

and self which gives the impression of the real life of spiritually stimulating landscape. 223

“Produces an ecological perspective that can help cultivate new forms of selfhood bonded to a

nonhuman world. Such perspective, it is argued, could align our sense of identity more firmly

within the natural environments”224. What we should know about the ecological autobiographies

and how different from the ordinary one. It is the relationship with the natural world, 225 or the

ecological identity which may include decisions that we made through our life and work and

where to live,226 it can give us, or manifest our being and what we are able to do and even it

would be a good road plan for the future.227 Mitchell Thomashow pointed out “environmental

values to construct a personal identity”228. Oppermann explained:

The essence of this deep ecological vision finds its ideal expression among many ecological life writers who embrace the belief that an “ecological self” is an important step in the development of a much needed ecocentric paradigm. It is in this sense that ecological life writing, as it is endorsed in this conference’s exposé, “offers new

219 Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. State University of NY Press, 2011, p. 5. 220 Ibid., p. 4. 221 Ibid., p. 5. 222 Alfred Hornung. Ecology and Life Writing. Heidelberg, 2013, p. 353. 223 Ibid., p. 353. 224 Ibid., p. 353. 225 Ruth Wilson. “Writing Your Ecological Autobiography”. Web. 20 June. 2015. (http://www.freelancewriting.com/articles/ff-writing-ecological-autobiography.php) 226 Ibid., 227 Ibid., 228 Mitchell Thomashow. Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist. Cambridge: MIT press, 1995, p.11.

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representations of the self, which are aligned with the cycles of nature and a healthy environment.229

Oppermann explained that Federman has a certain way of addressing the modalities of self

which does not refer to the ecological understanding of self. 230 Federman has a way of

problematizes which is concerned with eco-autobiographies. Here, Oppermann asked a question

to clarify Federman’s writing.231 What possibilities for such writing does ecocriticism allow,

especially someone like Federman who opens his own self to the fictional inventions. 232

Oppermann points out:

In the attempt to relate Federman’s work to contemporary environmentalism, a good place to start with is his offering of a more interesting understanding of how a sense of self works itself out in fiction and the world. I argue that as typical postmodern autobiographies, these two surfictions contain a fictional reservoir of environmental issues. They are potentially rich in their discursive frames of reference to inner and outer ecologies.233

What Oppermann tried to explain is how Federman was able to integrate fact, and fiction,

reality and imagination.234 She added:

Federman’s outer ecology, similarly configured upon a web of mutual relations between the ontology of place and its discursive constructions, is a recourse to a land that cannot anchor the vagaries of his real and invented selves as well as their dispositions of identity and memory which are rendered ambiguous.235

Definitely Oppermann explored those features in Federman’s surfictions, The Twofold

vibration (1982) and The Return to Manure (2006) which she believed that the land for

229 Alfred Hornung. Ecology and Life Writing. Heidelberg, 2013, p. 354. 230 Ibid., p. 354. 231 Ibid., p. 354. 232 Alfred Hornung. Ecology and Life Writing. Heidelberg, 2013, p. 356. 233 Ibid., p. 356. 234 Ibid., p. 356. 235 Ibid., p. 356.

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Federman is more than a place but it is a reinvented fictional environment which he constantly

remold.236 Oppermann went further to say:

From an explicitly ecological point of view, Federman’s outer ecology problematizes environmental-ethical concerns, … from an ecological-postmodern perspective, it is suffused with playfully rendered environmental perspectives questioning the utopic visions of romantic ecologies, which Federman exhibits with alacrity especially in The Twofold Vibration and Return to Manure.237

Federman breaks the outer and inner processes in his suggestions which denoted that the

outer is shot through inner evaluative significance(writing is synonymous with being),238 for

him, writing is a vivid thing which overbears loss, pain, and death. Oppermann pointed out that

“Hence his use of pluralist postmodern subjectivity to express an identity that has been

reinvented in writing, proposing alternative configurations of inner and outer ecologies”239.

Oppermann asked a question how to construct a language of an ecology of a surfictional self…

within the framework of common principles?240

Federman’s autobiographical surfictions focus on the ways of making that language matter. It is a language that invests in the necessity, as Federman puts it, of producing meaning, and not merely reproducing a pre-existing meaning (Critifiction 38). Language for Federman is an embedded activity—embedded in the very reality of life itself. Life, by the same token, is embedded in the very reality of language itself.241

For Federman, language is everything “life, history, experience, even death is contained in

language”242 Hornung pointed out:

Federman gives agency to language, whereby the real and the fictive become completely intertwined, “abolishing the boundary between reality and imagination” (Critifiction 103). For him, fiction writing is a part of being: “fiction is above all an effort to apprehend and

236 Brian McHale. Postmodern Fiction. Routledge, 2003, p. 207. 237 Alfred Hornung. Ecology and Life Writing. Heidelberg, 2013, p. 356. 238 Ibid., p. 357. 239 Ibid., p. 357. 240 Ibid., p. 358. 241 Ibid., p. 359. 242 Raymond Federman. Critifiction: Postmodern Essays. Sunny Press, 1993, p. 89.

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comprehend human existence played on the level of words” (Critifiction 38). This concern with language is a direct outcome of Federman’s tragic life story. He actually defines language in an interview with Charles Bernstein as a prison: “it’s a cell, it’s a box . . . I wanted the box of words not to say what it was, but to be what it was”.243

Subverting rules seems to go well with Federman and it seems that he used it for

unprecedented like bringing life to death by reinventing the text over and over and we can see

that throw his Surfiction244 “If life and fiction are no longer distinguishable one from the other,

nor complementary to one another, and if we agree that life is never linear, that, in fact, life is

chaos because it is never experienced in a straight, chronological line, the, similarly, linear and

orderly narration is no longer possible”245.

243 Alfred Hornung. Ecology and Life Writing. Heidelberg, 2013, p. 359. 244 Ibid., p. 359. 245 Raymond Federman. Critifiction: Postmodern Essays. Sunny Press, 1993, p. 42.

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CHAPTER II

2.1. Winterson’s Boating for Beginners

Boating for Beginners was Winterson’s second novel. She was 24 when she wrote the

book based on the publishers demand for something humorous.246 The main reason behind

writing this book is that Winterson wanted to earn her living.247 It is a comic book published

three months after the Oranges. She explained on her website “the reason I’ve been quite about

this book is not because I don’t like it – I do – but because I was fed-up with people

(newspapers) getting the facts wrong, or rather never bothering to check them”248. She pointed

out that the British Journalists never seem to care about the facts whether they are right or not.249

She also marked these phenomena as a tool used by those people to prove their subject even if

it’s a lie, it does not matter as long as it works. “It’s a pity when something fun gets used as a rod

to beat you with, but there are always people who will use whatever is in hand to prove their

thesis”250 . The novel was considered by many as funny and crazy, by that we mean it is

something Winterson had to write to show how hypocrite the world is and how people can

simply be fooled and blinded.251

The novel is an adaptation of the famous Noah (The Prophet) story which was mentioned in

the Bible and other famous books who was asked by God to build an Ark because God is fed up

with people not following his Prophet and the earth is about to flood.252 Winterson’s novel is a

little different from the original one. It’s a story about Noah, who appeared to have a luxury boat,

made a conference where many people witnessed something extraordinary.253 After Noah raised

his hand to the sky and a cloud came from nowhere sparkling with this sound “I am that I am,

246 Susana Onega Jaen. Jeanette Winterson. Manchester University Press, 2006, p. 5. 247 Jeanette Winterson. “Boating for Beginners”. Web. 27 Jul. 2015. (http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/book/boating-for-beginners/) 248 Ibid., 249 Ibid., 250 Ibid., 251 Merja Makinen. The Novels of Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 53. 252 Susana Onega Jaen. Jeanette Winterson. Manchester University Press, 2006, p. 5. 253 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 44.

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Yahweh the unpronounceable”254 Noah told the people this was God revealing himself in front of

us because human beings have forgotten about him. Noah ironically created the unpronounceable

from a piece of gateau and big electric toaster,255 both collaborated to use the people for their

interest like businessmen and it seems things are getting well with them.256 The story goes on as

Noah decided to make a documentation or a film about the flood, but in a different way, the

unpronounceable thinks he might and will make an actual flood where they both can rewrite the

Genesis or How I did It.257

Mrs. Munde seems to have great interest in Noah; she even named her new daughter Gloria

which somehow represents Glory Crusade.258 The little Gloria grew up to seek her way through

the world. Gloria’s life seems pre-arranged before here, brought up by a religious woman whom

loved to read novels by Bunny Mix who wrote novels of love and romance “she had written

almost one thousand novels, all of which had the same plot, but she was clever enough to rotate

the color of the heroine’s hair and the hero’s occupation so that you never felt you were reading

the same book twice in a row”259. The story goes on as Gloria found out that her mother is a

gaby, and that Noah is simply a fraud as he made his boat which is already made of fiberglass

along with some gopher wood so that this can be some kind of evidence for future

archaeologists.260 Bryant also pointed out in the Polari Magazine:

Boating for Beginners is in fact prefaced with a quotation from a story printed in the Guardian which reports that archaeologists found remains in Turkey believed to be from Noah’s Ark.. That such remains could be used to prove a story, that this is a false corollary, is the object of Winterson’s satire.261

254 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 13. 255 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 46. 256 Ibid., p. 46. 257 Ibid., p. 53. 258 Christopher Bryant. “Boating for Beginners. Jeanette Winterson ”. Web. 20 Jul. 2015. (http://www.polarimagazine.com/classicbooks/boating-for-beginners-by-jeanette-winterson-1985/) 259 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999. p. 16. 260 Christopher Bryant. “Boating for Beginners. Jeanette Winterson”. Web. 20 Jul. 2015. p.1. (http://www.polarimagazine.com/classicbooks/boating-for-beginners-by-jeanette-winterson-1985/) 261 Ibid., p. 1.

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Boating for Beginners was taken from the well-known story of Noah (The Prophet) which

most of us know. Winterson’s aim was not to retell the story, but rather use it as a tool to attack

the society or its principles.262 Parody which seems a very good medium used by Winterson

defined as:

One of the most calculated and analytic literary techniques: it searches out, by means of subversive mimicry, any weakness, pretension or lack of self-awareness in its original. This ‘original’ may be another work, or the collective style of a group of writers, but although parody is often talked of as a very clever and inbred literary joke, any distinctive and artful use of language – by, for example, journalists, politicians or priests – is susceptible of parodic impersonation.263

The purpose may be to reproduce the past form to promote it or to criticize and break down

the past form to deconstruct it.264 The reason Winterson chose the Bible because she noticed

some gaps in it and used them in her criticism.265 This also might take us into a state of

questioning the Bible itself as Winterson questioned not only the text but the belief. The gaps she

found within the Bible became a big vacant space made by parody, Winterson is a great

contributor to the postmodern parody, her novels smashed the beliefs in fixed concepts such as

the power of the author and the unity of grand narratives.266

It is important to know that Winterson stood against the traditional rigid aspects of fiction

such as time order, consequential order of events and unity. Elif pointed out in her thesis that

Winterson “problematizes the totalitarian perceptions which was generated from the belief in one

single transcendental truth and she questioned the validity of the grand narratives such as the

Bible”267.

Parody used by Winterson to turn over what was known and accepted in her works.268 She also

used it to make a sophisticated intertextual structure.269 Barth explained such approach and such

262 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 53. 263 Peter Childs. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Taylor & Francis, 2006, p. 166-167. 264 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 1. 265 Ibid., p. 1. 266 Ibid., p. 1. 267 Ibid., p. 2. 268 Susana Onega Jaen. Jeanette Winterson. Manchester University Press, 2006, p. 2.

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kind of an open text as an “answer not to an interpretation, even a liberal one, but to an

explosion, a dissemination” 270 . The parodic treatment of text made a vacant space which

deconstructs the known understanding of the work as one entity which puts a single

interpretation,271 Winterson’s aim was to destroy this notion of control over the interpretation of

the Bible in the novel and created an open narrative through parody.272

The novel which was described as a complex frame held within its boundaries different kinds

of texts all collaborated to put the Biblical myth of the flood and the patriarchal implication in

the light.273 Winterson used parody to overturn those patriarchal notions in the Bible,274 which

seems nothing has remained of those holy books as a spiritual value.275 As a matter of fact, the

Bible flood myth marked this integrated network of contemporary intertexts and discourses.276

Opperman explained how this outcome as a mixture “creates pluralist signifying practices within

the textual parody of Genesis”277.

Boating for Beginners pushed away the possibility of making meaning by emphasizing the

multitude which is the result of continuous signifying practices,278 Eagleton pointed out “the sign

which will give meaning to all others”279 God here is one of the examples which was mocked

and subverted by Winterson.280 Vanhoozer commented on God the “author of the authors, the

authority behind all authorities”281 well, this sound typical and ancient for Winterson as she

269 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 3. 270 John Barth. “From Work to Text. 7 Propositions from Barthes”, Fontana, (1977), p. 1. 271 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 52. 272 Ibid., p. 2. 273 Ibid., p. 4. 274 Peter Childs. Contemporary Novelists: British Fiction Since 1970. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 283. 275 Ibid., p. 284. 276 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 44. 277 Serpil Opperman. “Postmodern Parody and Intertextuality in Jeanette Winterson’s Boating for Beginners”, Journal of English Literature and British Culture, 8 (1999-2000), p. 82. 278 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 44. 279 Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Blackwell, 2008, p. 113. 280 Merja Makinen. The Novels of Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 53. 281 Kevin Vanhoozer. Is There a Meaning is This Text. Zondervan, 1998, p. 47.

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mocked this status of God. 282 His representations in the text emphasized that he has been

dethroned from his holy place or as an outcast.283 Elif explained that the concept of God is

undermined as it represented the author.284 Elif also pointed out how Winterson used the Bible’s

flood myth and presented it with a contemporary capitalist version:

Winterson creates a textual double to the Biblical Flood myth through parody. By presenting a combination of contemporary capitalist discourses within the frame of the subverted Biblical flood myth, Winterson aims at deconstructing the concepts of author and work, and creating an open textual narrative which releases multiple meanings.285

This is an example from the Bible, describing mankind's corruption which needs punishment.

“The Earth was also corrupt before God; the earth was filled with violence. And God looked

upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth”286.

As it was mentioned in the Bible, the humankind condition became a source of worry to God, so

he decided to bring banishment and destruction.287 Noah, God’s servant and messenger is the

only survivor “was a just man, perfect in his generations”288 Noah was told to build a big ship

(Ark) made of wood and get on it with his wife, his sons and their wives, not only Noah asked to

put his family on the ship but to get every pair of animals, birds of all kinds with him.289 Noah

had nothing to do but to obey, God ordered the sky to rain until it floods the earth.290 Since, all

are dead now, Noah had nothing to do but wait, until the water has started to retract and as it was

mentioned in the Bible the ark comes “to rest on the mountains of Ararat”291 to make sure there

was land and the water is receding Noah sent a bird a few times until he got his bird back with an

olive leaf in its pack and that was a sign the water has receded.292 Noah in order to thank God

282 Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Blackwell, 2008, p. 113. 283 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 44. 284 Ibid., p. 44. 285 Ibid., p. 45. 286 Genesis 6. “Wickedness in the World: Noah and the Flood”. Web. 16 May. 2015. (http://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/6.htm) 287 Ibid., 288 Genesis 6. “The Wickedness of Men: Noah’s Favor with God”. Web. 14 May. 2015. (http://biblehub.com/dbt/genesis/6.htm) 289 Ibid., 290 Ibid., 291 Genesis 8, “The Ark Rests on Ararat”. Web. 15 May. 2015. (http://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/8.htm) 292 Ibid.,

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made an altar and presented burnt offerings to God.293 God is pleased with Noah’s offerings and

he made a word never to bring distraction into the world again “I establish my covenant with

you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there

anymore be a flood to destroy the earth”294.

Bernard Cohn pointed out that Yahweh “Acts as a judge who is outraged at the infraction of

the divinely established law”295 which also proved his position “the one and the only God” 296

Winterson’s novel parody God’s authoritarian shape as he tried to be the only one, but he failed

to do so, within the textual plays of fiction.297 He became more dependent on Noah whom

ironically brought him back.298 Winterson presented the story in a new contemporary text and

Noah is re-instated as a 20th century capitalist who as we know running a business called

“Boating for Beginners” God, Yahweh, The Unpronounceable, names given to what seems to be

the Almighty, whom according to the text is dethroned and reinstated by Noah who did it by

chance from a black gateau in an electric toaster while trying to find the principle of life.299 Noah

feels “a curious, frightful, intoxication motion” Noah witnessed a “new life form and struggled

their way to the surface of what had been vile slime”300. He found what seems to be a great

power.

Winterson’s gave God many positions in the book unlike the Bible, which presented him as

the center of existence.301 Winterson’s aim was to disrupt God’s position through parody,302 by

presenting him as an actor who did a role in the film The Big Flood and surprisingly Elif argued

that Winterson made fun of the film industry, as the money was the goal and nothing more.303

293 Genesis 8, “The Ark Rests on Ararat”. Web. 15 May. 2015. (http://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/8.htm) 294 Genesis 9:11, “The Covenant of the Rainbow”. Web. 14 May. 2015. (http://biblehub.com/genesis/9-11.htm) 295 Norman Cohn. Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in The Western Thought. New Haven, 1996, p. 16. 296 Ibid., p. 16. 297 Merja Makinen. The Novels of Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 54. 298 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p.45. 299 Ibid., p. 46. 300 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 83. 301 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 47. 302 Ibid., p. 47. 303 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 47.

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Foucault explained that “the author does not precede the work; he has a certain functional

principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes, and chooses; in short by which one

impedes the free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition and re-

composition of fiction”304. Barthes pointed out that the free text in which the writer made it in the

way he thinks and wishes to imitate his personality305, but the tricky thing is, the text made his

own journey through the reader’s minds, thoughts, constructing its own identity. 306 Elif

explained what Barthes argued:

Roland Barthes made a strong argument against the centrality of the figure of author in the literary study. Barthes had a similar notion concerning the author figure. He also believed that the author is a modern figure. He indicated that the concept of author is one of the outcomes of the capitalist ideology as the capitalist ideology celebrated the “person” of the author… the (modern scriptor) is born simultaneously with the text, is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing307

Winterson’s aim was to shatter the meaning of God by playing with signifiers, the result is the

loss of meaning, so who is God? Is he the actor, the almighty on the move or in the scriptures

“all this was happening a long time ago, before the flood. The Big Flood starring God and Noah

and a cast of thousands who never survived to collect their royalty cheques”308. And that was the

first reference.309 The second one was God “I am that I am, Yahweh the unpronounceable”310

Elif explained that since the word is unpronounced it cannot give meaning, so God became a

displaced signifier.311 The series of undermining God are argued to have no end. There is an

example of how God has been presented, hand in hand, with human character in which

Winterson found it helpful with the dialogue but he has not even made it.312 “This is the biggest

theatrical spectacle anyone has ever seen, and it’s got Bunny Mix doing the screenplay and

YAHWEH himself helping with the dialogue. How can it fail-the winner of the Purple Heart

304 Michel Foucault. What is an Author?. The New Press NY, 1969, p.221. 305 Ibid., p. 47. 306 Ibid., p. 47. 307 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p.46-47. 308 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 12. 309 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 48. 310 Ibid., p. 13. 311 Ibid., p. 48. 312 Ibid., p. 50.

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Award and the Creator of the world was brought together for the first time”313 Bunny Mix was

presented by Winterson as a famous writer who contributed in shaping the new world through

her fiction.

Winterson not only presented God by undermining the worldly image, she also presented him

as a greedy businessman who favored keeping the money and fame over dignity.314 “Destroy

him, destroy him,’ urged one of the more hyperactive angels. ‘I can’t do that,’ snapped God. ‘It

would mean a riot. I’ve just started to get some control down there, and our Good Food Guide’s

selling well. I like being in print”315. For God, the business comes first and destroying Noah was

not an option for him because he is the source of his fame.316 Winterson also made fun of God as

a paragon of perfection.317 Noah, God’s ally was presented as a capitalist figure “Noah was right

wing, suspicious of women, and totally committed to money as a medium for communication.

Yet when he spoke he charmed”318.

God is known to be the origin of living things, but in Winterson’s fiction this principle is

shaken as the idea of God made himself.319 It is also becoming more disturbing as the writer

presented Orange Demon as the metafictional power to transcend fiction:

You might not be,’ grumbled Doris ‘but I am. This may be my one appearance in print. I may never occur in another novel. You appear all the time; you can afford to be relaxed.’ It was true. The orange Thing turns out everywhere, as a demon, a sprite, omnipotent author, flashes of insight.320

The Orange Demon was described as having more influence and power in the text and outside

it, and moves from one to another.321 This is unlike the God’s image in the book which depends

313 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 47. 314 Sonia Front. Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction. Peter Lang, 2009, p. 168. 315 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 52-53. 316 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 49. 317 Ibid., 49. 318 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 69. 319 Ibid., p. 69. 320 Ibid., p. 71. 321 Sonia Front. Transgressing Boundaries in Jeanette Winterson’s Fiction. Peter Lang, 2009, p. 168.

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on the text for his existence which will be re-written by Noah and Bunny Mix.322 Elif explained

that “the Orange Demon has an identity beyond the textual unity. He is the controller of different

texts unlike God who is controlled by the text.323 As a meta-fictional being, he has a wider

perspective than God about the flood God and Noah are planning”324. Noah’s image seems to

have overtaken God’s which became no more than a tool “Flood myths are very potent things;

humankind can’t resist them. I knew this was going to happen right from the start. Don’t you

know that men always pee on the fire?”325. Noah plan was to re-write everything and present it to

the future generation as God’s own words,326 “So I’ll suggest that we re-write Genesis and make

it look like God did it all from the very beginning and, we’ll put a lot of stories about how

mysterious he is, and how no one knows where he came from”327. This denoted that God already

lost his status as the author who makes meaning. Again God’s image here has no power over the

text.328

‘I’ve had a bad journey and something funny is happening to my left leg. It seems to be generating a smoke column, which in the ordinary way wouldn’t be too bad, but this one appears to have a personality [...] If I am God to the world I can’t reveal a rival. People will call me pagan and it won’t be so impressive being in two places at the same time. I’ll be ordinary!’ ‘Calm down!’ Noah soothed. ‘There is no problem that your mother can’t solve.329

From the lines above, God seems worthless, and it is the reason his identity is still not

completed. His power and influence as a creator over the already existing world is doubtful. He

is also presented as a child who needs mothering care.330 Noah’s responses ‘soothes’ God actions

or behavior emphasized God’s immaturity and inability to sort out his problems.331 Winterson

322 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 51. 323 Ibid., p. 51. 324 Ibid., p. 51. 325 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage. 1999, p. 92. 326 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 51. 327 Ibid., p.110. 328 Ibid., p. 52. 329 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage. 1999, p. 112. 330 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 53. 331 Ibid., p. 53.

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deconstructs the author’s concept by parodying God (author of Holy Scriptures) as part of the

written text.332 God the multi-faced figure is originated from language. So far, God the holy

image was created by the text and given a secondary status.333

Just as a point of interest: the Bible is probably the most anti-linear text we possess, which is why it’s such a joy. People have believed for centuries, on the authority of the book of Genesis, that there was once a deluge over the whole world. Maybe Genesis is less important than it was, but we still like flood stories – whether they are Plato’s Atlantis or yarns about the Loch Ness Monster.334

The previous lines deconstruct the Bible as a holy book and center of the earth by equating it

with Plato’s Atlantis which is fictional works.

‘I suggest,’ said the rabbit of romance slowly, ‘a rainbow.’ ‘A rainbow,’ repeated Noah. ‘Perfect. We go walking off all fresh and hopeful and we look up and see a rainbow. We can pretend we didn’t have them before. No one’s going to argue, are they?.335

Bunny Mix suggested to Noah to add the rainbow to the story as something new to make the

book more interesting and give more credibility. Elif explained more:

By opening up the writing process of the flood myth, Winterson denies the permanence of any written text and invites the readers to consider the different interpretations within a text before taking it for granted. This is an iconoclastic approach to the Bible since it aims at breaking the validity of its keystones as stating that the Bible is a fictional means of devoicing it from its sacred status.336

Winterson’s aim is not to take any text for granted as long as it is a written text (Bible) it can

be contradictory and hold different interpretations within and between its lines.337

332 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 53. 333 Ibid., p. 53. 334 Jeanette Winterson. Boating for Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 65-66. 335 Ibid., p. 139. 336 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 56. 337 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 56.

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2.2. Federman’s To Whom It May Concern

This part will be dedicated to Federman’s novel To Whom It May Concern. This piece of

work like other Federman’s and one of his early achievements, to be exact it’s his 6th novel.338 To

Whom It May Concern is another journey to Federman’s early life as a child and his artistic style

which brings the visual and semantic together in new typography.339 His innovative style was a

reaction to the claim that pronouncement was the death of the novel in the late 1960's.340 We will

discuss Federman’s style and technique, to be more precisely the metafictional aspects or

surfictional methods, how Federman constructed and shaped his novel, the way he invented it

and used it to mold the language.

There are many ways to look into this masterpiece which is not only mere a literary work or a

novel, it is a life story, Federman wrote his experience which he went through during The

Second World War as a child.341 It is one of the many he rewrote and reshape “Well you invent

yourself as you go along, re-invent what you think really happened, this way you can survive

anything”342. Federman’s conception of reality and the way he recreates it, how he constantly

changes his views about it,343 play with it and unleash our imagination and drive us to his

fictional world which left you puzzled and alienated in his world of misrepresentation.344 The

way Federman approaches reality is by creating this fictional gap, trying to fill them up with real

images and representations.345 Opperman pointed out “specifically highlights, is rendered in a

metafictional mode which challenges not only the dualism between the world and the word, but

also the forced separation between the land (as the local physical site) and the self”346.

338 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically" Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 99. 339 Ibid., p. 99. 340 Ibid., p. 1. 341 Ibid., p. 1. 342 Raymond Federman. The Twofold Vibration. Green Integer , 1982, p.51. 343 Henry Sussman. Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political. Sunny Press, 2001, p. 84. 344 Ibid., p. 84. 345 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 100. 346 Ibid., p. 100.

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Federman approached his subject, treatment, possibilities, choices, questions, possible

answers, gaps, foreshadowing and backshadowing and fictional images which helped shape this

semi-autobiographical novel.347 If we visualize the novel events, this guy has been through hell,

no one can imagine himself in his shoes, to be one day and not in another in a world or place in

between.348 All lost, all alone, this is what we call the apocalypse. Sarah and her cousin were lost during the roundup of the Jews in Paris. Five decades later the

two cousins are about to meet in Israel.349 Federman struggles to tell the story (true narration) to

tell the truth, the only thing he can do is communicate with the horrible past.350 The story which

he recalls, were incidents in the past which turn out to be Federman’s surfictional story made

from pieces of fragmented historical events.351 The story starts with the writer presenting a kind

of summary or introduction to this novel, a big fragmented picture of his work.352 The narrator

examines the possibility of writing a book about Sarah and her cousin,353 their sufferings during

and after the war, the narrator struggling to make a book, a good one with new style, 354

Federman was very clear about that when he said:

I am convinced that we must now move beyond more fables, beyond the neatly packaged stories which provide a chain of terminal satisfaction from predictable beginnings to foreshadowed endings. We have come so far in the long journey of literature that all the stories whisper the same old thing to us in the same cracked voice. And so we must dig in to see where the raw words and fundamental sounds are buried so that the great silence within can finally be decoded.355

347 Henry Sussman. Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political. Sunny Press, 2001, p. 100. 348 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 102. 349 Serpil Oppermann. “The Interplay Between Historicism And Textuality: Postmodern Histories”. Web. 1st Aug. 2015 (https://www.academia.edu/741806/) 350 Ibid., p. 18. 351 Ibid., p. 18. 352 Alfred Hornung. Autobiographie & Avant-grade. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 344. 353 Jeffery R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. Sunny Press, 2012, p. 234. 354 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 102. 355 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. University of Alabama Press, 1990, p. 86.

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The fictional world of Federman takes us to his fictional arena, where he examines the

fictionality of the world or the past,356 he is part of which it constantly changes and manipulates

escaping the trap of repetition in the novel.357 Waugh pointed out:

The power of the creative imagination together with an uncertainty about the validity of its representations an extreme self-consciousness about language, literary form and the act of writing fictions; a pervasive insecurity about the relationship of fiction to reality; a parodic, playful, excessive or deceptively naive style of writing.358

Henry Sussman and Christopher Devenney addressed in their book Engagement and

Indifference (2001) the issue of Federman’s fiction and ascribe it to narrative reflexivity which

seems to be an ideological use as a facilitator of a critical exchange between author, text, reader

and culture.359 They also added: “As a species of resistance to traditional construction of reality,

self-reflexive fiction is historically justified: it took shape, according to Federman, in the sixties

and early seventies to fill the linguistics gap created by the disarticulation of the official

discourse in its relation with the individual”360.

As the novel came to light Joseph C. Schopp compares it to Federman’s early novels Double

or Nothing and Take it or Leave it (1976) which disrupted the conventional narrative and reveled

in narratological game playing.361 He also added “the unusual typographical arrangement, the

frequent digressions, the lengthy self-reflexive narratological sequences… which employ the

narrative experiment in a much subtler, less demonstrative way” 362 . Marcel Cornis-Pope

characterized Federman’s work: “Altogether more fluid and relaxed, less typographically

oriented and ‘engulfed by the tidal events of his narration’ … here Federman unfolds a narrative

of possibilities, rather than one of impossibilities and ‘cancellation’ as before”363.

356 Henry Sussman. Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political. Sunny Press, 2001, p. 101. 357 Ibid., p. 101. 358 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 2. 359 Henry Sussman. Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political. Sunny Press, 2001, p. 84. 360 Ibid., p. 84. 361 Alfred Hornung. Autobiographie & Avant-grade. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 341. 362 Ibid., p. 341. 363 Marcel Cornis-Pop. “Narrative (Dis)articulation and the Voice in the Closet Complex in Raymond Federman’s Fictions”. Critique, 29 (1988), 77-93, p. 83.

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Schopp also addressed the past and how the author was so serious and ready to speak about it

without any major deceptions, deviations or postponement. 364 Federman examines the

fictionality of the world or the past, he is part of what he is constantly changes and manipulates

escaping the trap of repetition as the novel,365 and we must pay attention that Federman revives

past events in which history meets metafiction.

As the novel unfolds its events, Federman’s aim is shifting and decentering the plot and more

likely buried within the elements of the story which was a major concern for Federman. He sees

it as a process of innovation that opens multiple ways of fiction.366 The novel events started on

Sunday, Nov. 20th. It is not the time or place that matters. “The grim story of Sarah and her

cousin should be told without any mention of time and place. It should happen on a timeless

vacant stage without scenery. No names of places. No décor. It simply happened, sometime and

somewhere”367. The writer was trying to make a point of keeping the name of Sarah’s cousin

anonymous, even though there was an attempt to figure out a name for him, but no more, except

to draw attention to the subject matter, design and geography and playing with text or

(Plotlessness).368 Di Leo commented:

Federman’s narrators, especially earlier in his career, often insist on the “Plotlessness” of their stories, but, like the claim about the collapse of the story and discourse, this rumor of plot’s demise proves to be exaggerated. Actually, plots abound in Federman’s fiction, in the sense good stories do get told, many of them classically pointed, with punch lines and payoffs … Federman’s narrators mean by plot they are strung loosely together in an episodic, picturesque structure.369

We can say it is like a puzzle in which we have pieces all scattered around the place and each

one is chasing each other, or we are, in order to make sense of it. Again, the narrator asks the

question, maybe it is Federman’s self-consciousness which reflects on him to get the fixed image

364 Alfred Hornung. Autobiographie & Avant-grade. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 341. 365 Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 2. 366 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 99. 367 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 14. 368 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 101. 369 Jeffrey R Di Leo. Federman Fictions. State University of NY Press, Albany, 2011, p. 97.

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of the story “The question before me, however, is not of the story. The story? Always the same,

the question of the tone and the shape of the story .. its geometry. Yes, how does it take to stage

the story of Sarah and her cousin?”370. The narrator tries to tell the story and finds it most

interesting to do so “there is a delay at the center of the story”371.

Unable to concentrate on the book he is reading, he lets his mind wander. What would he have become if he had gone with Sarah to the desert thirty-five years ago instead of seeking fame and fortune elsewhere? What would he be today? Just a farmer like her? Certainly not a sculptor, an artist clinging to a vanishing reputation. There are the questions he has asked himself over the years. He often tried to imagine Sarah’s life. He has always been fascinated by the desert, has always thought of himself as a nomad. He even calls himself a nomad.372

Both cousins were thinking, asking the same questions again and again, recalling the events

of the Great War, while she was waiting for the plane, which never landed, the reader left with

pictures of harsh memory, of the traumatic days of the war.373 Schopp claimed that the whole

text is dark wintry text, it seemed that the author’s winter story are a series of letters written in

the most uncomfortable season of the year.374 The title of these letters was addressed to no one

and it simply it whom the letters really concern. Schopp emphasized on the author role “the

author himself, situated outside the text advising, criticizing and encouraging his narrator in his

attempt to tell the tale of Sarah and her cousin”375. He also added:

Thus, despite the greater fluidity of the form and a much more relaxed tone of the tale, the reader, once again, faces a narrative configuration which is so characteristic of Federman’s entire oeuvre: the real author (whom we have to assume outside the text) at least twice reflected and thus twice removed, in order to make the reader aware of the autobiographical act as an act of removal and never one of representation. It is always marked by absence never by presence.376

370 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 18. 371 Ibid., p. 19. 372 Ibid., p. 88. 373 Alfred Hornung. Autobiographie & Avant-garde. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 344. 374 Ibid., p. 344. 375 Ibid., p. 345. 376 Ibid., p. 345.

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Di Leo pointed out in Federman’s Fiction’s (2012) what Sarah and her cousin were looking

for “is the meaning of (their) separation – the meaning of their absence from each other”377 their

reunion can only be possible in a narrative structure that offers them a cathartic confrontation

with the crumpled structure of history.378 “Meaning of an absence …. The suffering of Sarah and

her cousin was never adequate, it dissipated into the incomprehension of suffering. That is why

that void of their lives can only find its fulfillment in the circumstances of that void”379. Geoffrey

H. Hartman in The Uses of literary History (1995) pointed out that Federman did not accept to

give his characters extra memory.380 The wound that resulted from absence never goes away, in

this he speaks for a whole generation of the post war whom lost their loved once, while they

themselves escaped the brunt of the conflict.381 “They Suffered from not Suffering enough”382 Di

Leo said “The Burden of history must be shared”383 Sarah and her cousin are themselves partners

in the reimagining of their life story.384 “hurled into the great void”385 their parents are gone so

their past “erased” “brutally exed out … destroyed”386 X-X-X-X are the symbols Federman

obsessed with plus his idea of absence,387 Schopp added “it also accounts for Federman’s horror

vacui (fear of empty space), his compulsion to speak, to throw light into the darkness of the

closet, to fill its void with vices and the empty pages staring at the writer with meaningful shapes

ad designs”388.

Sarah and cousin were stripped of their parental past and ejected into a void, in order to find

themselves, they need to use this void by creating something else to become shapers.389 He

became “a wild reckless and yet sensitive artist” a “mad chiseler of wood, stone, and metal”390

cutting away at an undefined mask, eager to convert the void into meaning.391 “His whole life he

377 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 40. 378 Jeffery R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. Sunny Press, 2012, p. 235. 379 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 108. 380 Marshall Brown. The Uses of Literary History. Duke University Press, 1995, p. 87. 381 Ibid., p. 88. 382 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 108. 383 Jeffery R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. Sunny Press, 2012, p. 235. 384 Ibid., p. 235. 385 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 64. 386 Ibid., p. 15. 387 Alfred Hornung. Autobiographie & Avant-grade. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 345. 388 Ibid., p. 345. 389 Ibid., p. 345. 390 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 50. 391 Alfred Hornung. Autobiographie & Avant-grade. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 345.

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had been obsessed with absence, and now he had found a way to render that absence present”392.

The cousin became a sculptor, he refused to give a clear and vivid shape to his work made from

stone and metal.393 “The fashioning of nature as a cultural construct, and psychological end-

result of the incoherence, horror, and chaos he had experienced as the only reality when he was a

little boy”394. The cousin argued himself convinced “reality did not exist because truth could not

be reproduced”395 symbolizing the shapeless statue he made.

Sarah went to camp-farm “looked like a dead volcano. It was an empty place. We tried to

make it full, but the desert is stubborn”396. The image of Sara’s garden has a crucial significance

in recalling what was absent.397 Just like the cousin, she creates a garden where “the flowers and

the plants deemed to defy the barren sand next to them”398. It seems that the desert carries dual

meaning, signifying loss with its boundlessness, and presence with her garden on its edge.399 The

garden gave Sarah unity with her life where she contemplates about life. 400 “what she

experienced as a child during the war, and later as a young woman when she came here, taught

her the supreme value not of art but of life … The time she spent in her garden meditating while

her hands were busy with flowers was an essential part of the day”401.

The writer’s words at the end of the novel gives a symbol of metafiction402 “the world in

which we live at best offers a truncated and fallacious existence, it requires that wither we close

our eyes and forget or compromise” 403 He deliberately confronts the world in the term of

392 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 108. 393 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 102. 394 Ibid., p. 102. 395 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 93. 396 Ibid., p. 178. 397 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 106. 398 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 93. 398 Ibid., p. 181. 399 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 106. 400 Ibid., p.106. 401 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 179-80. 402 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 101. 403 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction Collective Two, 1990, p. 184.

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materially applied metafictional examination, which concerns as much to the real as it does to

fictional.404 Thus, in this novel fiction and world existentially merge.405

404 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 101. 405 Ibid., p. 101.

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2.3. Similarities and Differences

In this part, we will point some similarities and differences between Winterson's Boating for

Beginners and Federman's To Whom It May Concern. We have been talking about metafictional

aspects which have been used to construct both novels; both of them have some similarities in

style. Both novels came from the postmodern environment, but each one still has distinctive

features. We will point out some of these similarities (if there are any) and differences in the

light of our reading.

To find the similarities in both novels, we must understand that both Federman and Winterson

came from a difficult background which shaped and molded their art, for Federman we know

that his experience during The Second World War was not an easy task at all; losing his family

was a great impact on him. The 12 years old boy left with a big hole in him, trying to fill this gap

constantly by looking for a sign of life from this absence and eventually the story became his

life.406 Federman was a first generation writer who came to the US after The Second World War.

He studied, worked, fought and lectured as a professor.407 It all started with his aim to revive the

novel by presenting a new innovative technique called surfiction as he called it.408 Winterson’s

story is much less tragic than Federman’s. She has been adopted at a very young age, by very

conservative isolated couples, somehow disconnected from the outer world, no phone, no car, no

friends and no sex.409 Mrs. Winterson was an oppressive mother, she had her own rules, she

believed in the return of Christ and the end of the world.410 Jeanette was not allowed to read

books except the Bible and some other books, because Mrs. Winterson believed that writers are

“Sex-crazed bohemians who broke the rules and didn’t go out to work”411 that’s why Jeanette

was not allowed to read any type of fiction. Isolated from the world, Jeanette needed love and

406 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman’s To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafiction Ecocritically”, 64 (2012), p. 104. 407 Jeffery R. Di Leo. Federman’s Fiction: Innovation, Theory, and the Holocaust. Sunny Press, 2012, p. 4. 408 Ibid., p. 5. 409 Merja Makinen. The Novels of Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 192. 410 Ibid., p. 192. 411 Jeanette Winterson. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal. Grove Press NY, 2012, p. 4.

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she tried to find it in books,412 but no more with Mrs. Winterson around, she fell in love with

another girl and run away from home when she was just 16.413

To Whom It May Concern was neither Federman’s first novel nor the last, as for, Sarah and

her cousin and the imaginary writer who was struggling to finish the story.414 Sarah’s cousin

depicted what was supposed to be Federman’s life during The Second World War. Federman’s

novel, is a perfect representation of postmodernism, it is still different from what we have in

Winterson’s novel.415 Federman was not just a writer as we explained before he is also associated

with the invention of the term metafiction or surfiction as he calls it.416 The first thing to notice

in Federman’s novel is the nameless writer, he refers to himself as the third person which is an

indication of the absence of narrative. Federman also commented “one must accept the fact that

what makes up his fiction is not necessarily what is there [...] but what is not there [...] In other

words, what is important to notice in Federman’s fiction is what is absent. And indeed, the

fundamental aspect, the central theme of his fiction is ABSENCE”417. Oppermann emphasized

that Federman also played with the language. She commented “The fact that they predominantly

expose their writing process cannot be denied, but in playing with language in the storytelling

process Federman does not lose sight of the interdependence between the discursive and the non-

discursive”418. Federman expressed that the writing process makes him tired, and there is a kind

of linkage between body and language “I write with my entire body,” he says in an interview.

“My body, is I hope, in the text too [...] I am very tired when I have finished writing because I

have used my body”419.

412 Jeanette Winterson. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal. Grove/Atlantic, 2012, p. 1. 413 Ibid., p. 2. 414 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 99. 415 Ibid., p. 96. 416 Ibid., p. 96. 417 Raymond Federman. Critifiction: Postmodern essays. Albany State University of NY Press, 1993, p. 86. 418 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 98. 419 Alfred Hornung. “Discussion: Joseph Schopp and Timothy Dow Adams Papers”, Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992, p. 383.

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Federman insisted on the rejection of fundamental dichotomies in all areas, he prophesied

about the future of fiction in 1975 and it highlights the logic of postmodern approaches to life

where every dichotomy is problematic:420

All forms of duplicity will disappear. And above all, all forms of duality will be negated—especially duality—that double-headed monster which, for centuries now, has subjected us to a system of values, an ethical and aesthetical system based on the principle of good and bad, true and false, beautiful and ugly.421

The self-reflexivity also seems to take place in Federman’s fiction, Oppermann thinks that

“The shifting relations between being and place take on a deeper and a more complex meaning in

the self-reflexive medium of the novel as the intimate connections between imagination,

memory, and place fuse with the logic and problematics of metafiction”422.

Federman’s To Whom It May Concern does create a strong bond with the land as a critical

factor in the human self-development, the mind, memory, history, language and place which are

blended in a self-reflexive encounter with the reader.423 In other words “To Whom It May

Concern self-consciously plays with the borderline between the past associated with the lost

homeland, and the present which is marked by absence”424.

We can notice that Federman’s approach tends to discard realism simply because “Sarah’s

story should not be touched by the banality of realism. It’s too fragile”425 for Federman “What

matters is the account and not the reality of events”426 as in this case reality cannot represent

such dilemma. Metafiction was the right way for Federman to narrate the cousin’s experience of

displacement.427 Fragmented parts and pieces of the story and the discontinuous style became an

420 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria De Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 98. 421 Raymond Federman. Surfiction: Four Propositions in Form of an Introduction. Chicago, 1975, p. 8. 422 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically” Revista Canaria De Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 101. 423 Ibid., p. 102. 424 Ibid., p. 102. 425 Raymond Federman. To Whom It May Concern. Fiction collective Two, 1990, p. 106. 426 Ibid., p. 38. 427 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically" Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 98.

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imitation of Federman‘s memory.428 The writer also plays with Sarah’s story, diverge it into

other stories, the imaginary writer reveals his anxieties during the writing process, talking about

how the story would look like, even talks to the reader and shifts perspectives.429 Federman tends

to diverge from everything known or familiar in order to reach the truth. He created these gaps

and spaces which cannot be reached by memory, and the language became that medium or

bridge to the unknown, and that was one of the reasons not to tell the story in a realistic form430,

so he chose to be in between the word and the world.

Winterson’s novel is different in many ways. In fact, it is unfair to compare it with Federman’s

work, but we will focus on the most important elements. The first thing to know that Winterson’s

novel was written during a very difficult times for her because she needed money to support

herself, so the story was made on the demand of the public unlike Federman.

The fact that Winterson used parody to present the novel, does not exclude other elements

such as irony and playfulness and deconstruction.431 She aimed to imitate the past in order to

criticize and subvert it,432 and what Winterson was looking for is the gaps in the Bible in order to

aim her fictional canon at them.433 Onal spoke of Winterson’s aim as follows:

Thus, her deconstructive use of parody arouses questions about the Bible in mind. She shatters the sacred foundations of the Bible through her deconstructive use of parody. She finds out the little gaps within the Biblical material through parody and gradually forms a big void out of these gaps.434

One of her aims was to destroy the theory of the grand narrative, which seems very obvious as

she attacked the pillars of society. Such sovereignty of the author in the text (Bible) which was

428 Serpil Oppermann. “Raymond Federman's To Whom It May Concern: Reading Metafictional Ecocritically" Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 64 (2012), p. 103. 429 Ibid., p. 103. 430 Ibid., p. 104. 431 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody in Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 1. 432 Ibid., p. 1. 433 Ibid., p. 1. 434 Ibid., p. 1.

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considered the ultimate truth and explanations of knowledge.435 Here is what Onal thinks about

Winterson:

She problematizes the totalitarian perceptions which generate from the belief in one single transcendental truth and she questions the validity of grand narratives such as the Bible. Parody becomes a deconstructive tool and strategy to subvert and topple down what is accepted as fixed in her novels.436

Winterson denied the chance to get the meaning because there are too many signifiers in her

novel. She disrupted the image of God (the transcendental signifier) and pictured his status as

less than secondary, by mocking his privileges as God.437 Onal pointed out:

Winterson creates a textual double to the Biblical Flood myth through parody. By presenting a combination of contemporary capitalist discourses within the frame of the subverted Biblical flood myth, Winterson aims at deconstructing the concepts of author and work, and creating an open textual narrative which releases multiple meanings.438

Winterson presented Noah as the 20th century capitalist who made a go from Black Forest

Gateau and ice-cream.439

Winterson makes use of parody as a deconstructive strategy to subvert the privileged role of the author by emphasizing the fictional status of God and the traditional notion of “the book” as a holy closed entity by recontextualising the flood myth and turning it into an open textual narrative.440

Here also is what Barthes thinks of authority and author and the capitalist ideology:

Roland Barthes made a strong argument against the centrality of the figure of author in the literary study. Barthes had a similar notion concerning the author figure. He also believed that the author is a modern figure. He indicated that the concept of author is one of the outcomes of the capitalist ideology as the capitalist ideology celebrated the “person” of the author. Hence, the author has become a ruler figure in literary history appearing in biographies, interviews and magazines.441

435 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 1. 436 Ibid., p. 2. 437 Ibid., p. 44. 438 Ibid., p. 44-45. 439 Jeanette Winterson. Boating For Beginners. Vintage, 1999, p. 83. 440 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 46. 441 Ibid., p. 46.

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We can conclude that Winterson does not give the meaning by switching signifiers and play

with them. In fact, she tends to lose the meaning by presenting different images of God, and it

seems the right way to shake the unity of the Bible through parody and the belief of the ultimate

truth.

As a result we can summarize these similarities and differences as following: both writers

were grown up in difficult circumstances and faced difficult times. Both writers were orphans.

Winterson used the Bible and claimed there are some gaps in it and she directed here fictional

cannons at them, while Federman used these gaps which are created by his displacement from

his own country and the disappearance of his family and he filled them with fictional images.

Federman was not only a writer of fiction but he was associated with invention of metafiction or

surfiction as he calls it, Winterson was one of few whom triggered such bold move toward the

symbol of truth and knowledge (Bible). Federman used nameless writer and refers to himself as

the third person, Winterson used conventional names for her characters but they were of great

significance. Federman used self-reflexivity and let the reader live the events of the novel one by

one with him, Winterson used mainly parody to criticize society pillars. Federman’s aim was to

shift and decenter the plot, Winterson aimed to imitate the past on order to criticize it to subvert

it.

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2.4. Conclusion

Both Federman and Winterson’s novels were based on personal experience. They challenged

what is known, what is familiar and aim their art at the center of reality by using language games

and manipulations, as realism became an abandoned environment for their art.

Plotlessness, fragmentation, self-reflexivity, playfulness, parody, decorated or formed

Federman’s To Whom It May Concern and Winterson’s Boating For Beginners and they used

them in many ways. Each novel presents its story based on the writer’s own experience and other

factors. Boating for Beginners criticized the Christian model represented by (patriarchal

discourses) and deconstructed its unity in the Bible which is the source of truth and mocked

God’s image presenting him as a greedy businessman favored money and fame over dignity.442

The purpose was to reproduce the past to criticize it and deconstructs it. She smashed the belief

in fixed concepts of power represented by the unity of grand narrative. She aimed at making an

open narrative and playing with signifiers to create meaning as God’s name Yahweh was tend to

give no meaning (displaced signifier). Winterson had her reasons as she stood against the

traditional rigid aspects of fiction, the text was not a mere parody, but her way of knitting the text

gave it the flexibility to hold multiple interpretations and variant meanings.443 Definitely then

Winterson’s novel used parody as a major tool to breakdown what is known and conventional

which makes parody a form of metafiction.

To Whom It May Concern depicted Federman’s early life or at least what we know about him.

The image of losing his family in The Second World War didn’t leave him, that absence was

created by a sense of loss as we see in Sarah and her cousin’s story, which was not to be done

any other way, fragmented plots, pictures, engaging with readers, nameless writer, and nameless

cousin leaves no room for another type of literature to handle the story other than metafiction.

The conception of reality also was of a great impact, as Federman constantly recreates it or

reinvented it, we can notice that he has a way when it comes to deal with the plot by shifting and

decanter it and last but not least the constant visit and engagement with the past without any

deception and the continuous search for the truth. Federman addressed a whole generation of the

post war whom lost their loved once. Metafiction is not meaningless anymore, as someone may 442 Elif Onal. “Analysis of The Use of Parody In Jeanette Winterson’s Orange Are Not The Only Fruit & Boating For Beginners”, Middle East Technical University, 2007, p. 67. 443 Ibid., p. 67.

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think, but it can give meaning beyond meaning a kind of interpretation which crosses all areas of

fixed meaning.

65

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71

CV

Name: Layth Taher Tawfeeq

Permanent Address: Tikrit, Salahuaddin, Iraq

Current Address: Fatih Mah. Isparta center, Turkey

Mobile: IQ (+964)7704510877 (currently off line)

Mobile: TR (+90) 531 831 00 97

Place and Date of Birth: Baghdad, Iraq, 25th April 1982

Education Info: B.A In English language

Graduated from college of languages, English language Dep.2005

Ongoing Master student in Suleyman Demirel University/ Isparta, Turkey

Mother Tongue: Arabic (reading and writing)

Other languages: Little Turkish

Employment:

-Tikrit University Headquarters 2007 Cultural relations Department, Translation Unit.

- 2008 Cultural Relations Department Administration Unit

- 2009-2010 Director Assistant for Cultural relations Department.

-2011 College of science dean office director

-2012 Cultural relations Department, Scholarship Unit director

-2013 Computer science college scientific office director

Awarded more than 20 Thanks and Appreciation certificate from the University President.

Skills: Cycling, little military expertise (good shooting but no combat involvement).

Computer skills: Word, power point, typing really good, can handle almost any problem with computers except severe damage cause of hacking or else.

Hobbies: Reading especially science articles, sports swimming, cycling (it now became more than a hobby, skill like), cars.