Abstract
In this paper, we aim at discussing the figure of the reader and the reading processes in Ian McEwan’s novel Sweet Tooth. To do so, we propose an articulation between the theoretical discourses on metafiction and the theory of aesthetic response. Drawing from theoretical frameworks elaborated mainly by Iser (1972, 1978, 1989, 2006) – regarding the theory of aesthetic response – and by Hutcheon (1980, 2000) and Waugh (1984) – regarding metafiction – we understand parody and mise en abyme as two metafictional procedures that constitute the structure of the implied reader. In this sense, if these metafictional creative strategies make the reading activity more complex, they also function as guiding systems to the reader, allowing him to pursue answers to the enigmas articulated within the novel. Parody and mise en abyme, for McEwan, are powerful tools in what we might perceive as a project to develop more proficient readers.
Highlights
In Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan’s thirteenth novel, published in 2012, the reader follows the events surrounding the narrator Serena Frome, a young English woman who is recruited by the MI51 in the 1970s, after graduating from Cambridge in Mathematics
We propose an articulation between the theoretical discourses on metafiction and the theory of aesthetic response
Drawing from theoretical frameworks elaborated mainly by Iser (1972, 1978, 1989, 2006) – regarding the theory of aesthetic response – and by Hutcheon (1980, 2000) and Waugh (1984) – regarding metafiction – we understand parody and mise en abyme as two metafictional procedures that constitute the structure of the implied reader
Summary
In Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan’s thirteenth novel, published in 2012, the reader follows the events surrounding the narrator Serena Frome, a young English woman who is recruited by the MI51 in the 1970s, after graduating from Cambridge in Mathematics. Considering metafiction as “fiction about fiction: novels and stories that call attention to their fictional status and their own compositional procedures”,2 several metafictional creative strategies are recognizable in Sweet Tooth: the activation of discourses from the disciplines of literary theory and criticism; the representation of literature in its medial disposition; the insertion of micronarratives (Haley’s short stories) that create mirroring effects in relation to the novel that accommodates them; and the parody of the detective and spy literary traditions. We defend the thesis that such solutions exist and that they are closely related to two metafictional creative strategies: the parody of detective fiction and the mise en abyme – the insertion of narrative(s) within a bigger narrative Both strategies depend upon and call for the reader’s active processes of reading, detecting and interpreting the literary text: whether by demanding the reader to seek differences among similarities or traces between mirrored stories, McEwan’s novel makes it clear that the burden of responsibility for sense-making falls upon the reader. This paper is to discuss the emphasis on the reading process and how it affects the reader of Sweet Tooth, we propose an articulation between the theoretical discourses on metafiction (as well as those on parody and mise en abyme) and Wolfgang Iser’s theory of aesthetic response: if the former enables reflections on fiction (including its reception) within fictional texts, the latter provides a solid framework for thinking about the act of reading – how a reader processes and interacts with literary texts
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