Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction

Delving into the narration of Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth (2012), this enquiry unravels the threads of conventional realistic narrative and avant-garde postmodernist one in the tapestry of the novel, arguing that through the miscibility of these two heterogeneous modes of narration McEwan construc...

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Main Authors: Seyed-Javad Habibi, Sara Soleimani-Karbalaei
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Kurdistan 2023-01-01
Series:Critical Literary Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://cls.uok.ac.ir/article_62521.html
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author Seyed-Javad Habibi
Sara Soleimani-Karbalaei
author_facet Seyed-Javad Habibi
Sara Soleimani-Karbalaei
author_sort Seyed-Javad Habibi
collection DOAJ
description Delving into the narration of Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth (2012), this enquiry unravels the threads of conventional realistic narrative and avant-garde postmodernist one in the tapestry of the novel, arguing that through the miscibility of these two heterogeneous modes of narration McEwan constructs a narrative meta-design that innovatively adds an enigmatic dimension to the spy novel genre. In his dual narrative that depends on verisimilitude as well as self-conscious reflexivity, he once again, a decade after his Atonement (2002), demonstrates his literary taste for bridging the "past" and "present." Marinating his narrative in Cold War events, and adding a dash of what Linda Hutcheon calls "historiographic metafiction," he makes a postmodern signature dish that sustains its paradoxical hybridity: a representational self-reflexivity or an anti-representational reflexivity. Aligned with Monica Cojocaru's detection of a "metafictional twist" in the novel as a part of her comparative investigation, this study discusses that Sweet Tooth's dual narrative makes it eligible to wear the postmodern badge.
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spelling doaj-art-32b53e89244f4535918fa6b0a083baaf2024-12-15T21:55:06ZengUniversity of KurdistanCritical Literary Studies2676-699X2716-99282023-01-01519110610.34785/J014.2023.007Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist MetafictionSeyed-Javad Habibi0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0249-4051Sara Soleimani-Karbalaei1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2343-5317Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Khouzestan, ACECR, I.R.IranAssistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Khouzestan, ACECR, I.R.Iran.Delving into the narration of Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth (2012), this enquiry unravels the threads of conventional realistic narrative and avant-garde postmodernist one in the tapestry of the novel, arguing that through the miscibility of these two heterogeneous modes of narration McEwan constructs a narrative meta-design that innovatively adds an enigmatic dimension to the spy novel genre. In his dual narrative that depends on verisimilitude as well as self-conscious reflexivity, he once again, a decade after his Atonement (2002), demonstrates his literary taste for bridging the "past" and "present." Marinating his narrative in Cold War events, and adding a dash of what Linda Hutcheon calls "historiographic metafiction," he makes a postmodern signature dish that sustains its paradoxical hybridity: a representational self-reflexivity or an anti-representational reflexivity. Aligned with Monica Cojocaru's detection of a "metafictional twist" in the novel as a part of her comparative investigation, this study discusses that Sweet Tooth's dual narrative makes it eligible to wear the postmodern badge.https://cls.uok.ac.ir/article_62521.htmlmetafictionmetanarrativeself-representationhybrid postmodernismanti-representationself-conscious narration
spellingShingle Seyed-Javad Habibi
Sara Soleimani-Karbalaei
Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction
Critical Literary Studies
metafiction
metanarrative
self-representation
hybrid postmodernism
anti-representation
self-conscious narration
title Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction
title_full Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction
title_fullStr Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction
title_full_unstemmed Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction
title_short Miscibility of Narrative Heterogeneity: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth as a Hybrid Postmodernist Metafiction
title_sort miscibility of narrative heterogeneity ian mcewan s sweet tooth as a hybrid postmodernist metafiction
topic metafiction
metanarrative
self-representation
hybrid postmodernism
anti-representation
self-conscious narration
url https://cls.uok.ac.ir/article_62521.html
work_keys_str_mv AT seyedjavadhabibi miscibilityofnarrativeheterogeneityianmcewanssweettoothasahybridpostmodernistmetafiction
AT sarasoleimanikarbalaei miscibilityofnarrativeheterogeneityianmcewanssweettoothasahybridpostmodernistmetafiction