Metafiction in New Zealand from the 1960s to the present day
While
studies of metafiction have proliferated across America and Europe,
this is the first full-length assessment of its place in the literature
of New Zealand. Taking as its point of reference a selection of works
from authors Janet Frame, C.K. Stead, Russell Haley, Michael Jackson,
Albert Wendt and Charlotte Randall, this study employs a
performative-based theoretical framework to examine how the
internationally-prevalent mode of metafiction has influenced New Zealand
fiction since the middle of the 20th century. While metafictional texts
have conventionally been thought to undermine notions of realism and
sever illusions of naturalistic representation, this thesis explores
ways in which the metafictional mode in New Zealand since the 1960s
might be seen to expand and augment realism by depicting individual
modes of thought and naturalising unique forms of self-reflection,
during what some commentators have seen as a period of cultural
‘inwardness’ following various socio-political shifts in the latter part
of 20th century New Zealand.
