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Journal of Narrative Theory, Volume 42, Number 2, Summer 2012,

pp. 166-192 (Article)

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DOI: 10.1353/jnt.2012.0005

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Ontological Metalepsis and
Unnatural Narratology1
Alice Bell and Jan Alber

In this article, we focus on ontological metalepses that involve represented

transgressions of world boundaries as one manifestation of the unnatural.
We first discriminate between ascending, descending, and horizontal met-
aleptic jumps—three types of unnatural metalepses, or, more specifically,
metalepses physically or logically impossible (Alber 80)—and, in a sec-
ond step, try to determine their potential functions. We also propose a new
cognitive model that modifies Gérard Genette’s structuralist model to con-
ceptualize ontological metaleptic jumps as (1) vertical interactions either
between the actual world and a storyworld or between nested storyworlds,
or as (2) horizontal transmigrations between storyworlds.2 We argue that
our postclassical method offers a more effective way of analyzing met-
alepsis because it allows us to describe the nature of ontological metalep-
sis more accurately and also because it embraces interpretation. We place
this article on the overlap between unnatural narratology and transmedial
narratology insofar as we analyze ontological metalepsis, an unnatural
phenomenon, in both print and Storyspace hypertext fiction.3

Metalepsis and Narrative Theory

In Narrative Discourse, Genette defines metalepsis as “any intrusion by
the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by the

JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory 42.2 (Summer 2012): 166–192. Copyright © 2012 by
JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory.
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 167

diegetic characters into a metadiegetic universe, etc.), or the inverse”

(234–35).4 Since Genette’s original definition, narratologists have devised
numerous typologies of metalepsis (see John Pier’s entries in the Hand-
book of Narratology and Routledge Encyclopedia). Marie-Laure Ryan, for
example, discriminates between ontological and rhetorical metalepsis: on-
tological metalepsis “opens a passage between levels that result in their in-
terpenetration, or mutual contamination,” while rhetorical metalepsis only
“opens a small window that allows a quick glance across levels, but the
window closes after a few sentences, and the operation ends up reasserting
the existence of the boundaries” (Avatars 207). Monika Fludernik distin-
guishes between four types of metalepsis: (1) authorial metalepsis (as in
Virgil “has Dido die”), which serves to foreground the inventedness of the
story; (2) ontological metalepsis (type 1) in which the narrator (or a char-
acter) jumps to a lower diegetic level; (3) ontological metalepsis (type 2)
in which a fictional character jumps to a higher narrative level; and (4)
rhetorical metalepsis (389). Fludernik also discriminates between “‘real’
and metaphorical metalepsis,” or in other words, “between an actual cross-
ing of ontological boundaries and a merely imaginative transcendence of
narrative levels” (396, emphasis original).
From our perspective, authorial and rhetorical metalepses are merely
metaphoric ones in which no actual boundary crossing takes place.5 To put
this point slightly differently, only ontological metalepses involve disori-
enting transgressions of boundaries that are physically or logically impos-
sible, and hence properly unnatural. All instances of metalepsis are physi-
cally impossible because in the actual world, entities from two different
ontological domains cannot interact. For instance, a fictional character
cannot literally communicate with his or her author, and an author cannot
step into the fictional world that s/he has created. Some ontological met-
alepses are also logically impossible because they violate the principle of
non-contradiction whereby two contradictory states of affairs cannot be
true at the same time, which means, for example, that the same character
cannot exist in two ontologically distinct domains simultaneously. Indeed,
as Ryan notes, “ontological transgressions cannot . . . occur in a fictional
world that claims to respect the logical and physical laws of the real
world” (Avatars 210).
In this article, we discriminate between three types of unnatural met-
alepses: ascending, descending, and horizontal. In an ascending metalep-
168 J N T

sis, a fictional character or narrator jumps from an embedded storyworld

to a hierarchically higher one, whereas in a descending metalepsis, a nar-
rator or a character jumps into an embedded storyworld or an author
jumps from the actual world into the storyworld.6 In addition to these two
vertical types of metalepsis are horizontal metalepses that represent cases
of what Pier calls ‘transfictionality,’ in which “say Sherlock Holmes ap-
pears in the fictional universe of Madame Bovary” (Handbook 199). The
transmigration of a character or narrator into a different fictional text is
metaleptic because, as in the other two cases, it involves the transgressive
violation of storyworld boundaries through jumps between ontologically
distinct zones or spheres.
This article will also expand the scope of unnatural narratology by in-
troducing digital narratives for analysis. As Pier recognizes, “metalepsis is
not a media-specific phenomenon,” and as such “has a significant role to
play in the transmedial narratology . . . and in intermediality, although to
date this connection remains largely unexplored” (200). In this article, we
will analyze a number of examples of metalepsis from print and hypertext
fiction. We will show that while different media afford different expres-
sions of metalepsis, the thematic functions that metalepses can enact can
be the same irrespective of the medium in which it appears.
In print literature, metalepsis is usually associated with postmodern fic-
tion. Outside of the print medium, however, metalepsis does occur quite
frequently in Storyspace hypertext fiction. Significantly, a number of hy-
pertext theorists have made generic associations between this fiction and
postmodern print fiction such as Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” be-
cause both types of text are habitually metafictional in their treatment of
ontological domains and boundaries. The choice offered to readers of hy-
pertext fiction means that a number of different routes exist within the
same text. It also means that readers experience hypertext narratives frag-
mentally. The consequence of the multi-linearity and fragmentation, along
with the reader’s ability to choose his or her route through the text, is that
hypertext narratives can depart from events in one part of the storyworld
to follow events in another part of the storyworld. This can lead not only
to a level of ambiguity, in terms of where the narrator is speaking from
and/or the ontological status of the narrative, but also to narrative contra-
dictions or inconsistencies. Perhaps not surprisingly therefore some Story-
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 169

space hypertexts, like some postmodern print fictions, contain metaleptic

jumps.
That so few examples of metalepsis exist in print fiction necessitates
the analysis of other types of texts, which in turn assists in the process of
canonizing those new fictional forms, such as hypertext fiction, and show-
ing how literary devices associated with print can proliferate across a
range of different media.7

Worlds vs. Levels

Like a number of other studies (for example, Brian McHale’s Postmod-
ernist Fiction, Werner Wolf’s “Metalepsis as a Transgeneric and Transme-
dial Phenomenon,” and Karin Kukkonen’s “Metalepsis in Popular Cul-
ture”), this article explains vertical and horizontal metalepses on the basis
of interactions between ontologically distinct worlds rather than narrative
levels. Fludernik and Ryan, following Genette, refer to diegetic levels in
their typologies, but not to how the maneuvers of ontological metalepses
in particular suggest a breach of world boundaries. Of course, authors,
readers, narrators, and characters cannot really interact or move between
ontological domains, which would involve, for example, authors physi-
cally entering their own texts, characters speaking to readers, or het-
erodiegetic narrators interacting with the characters to which they have no
ontological association. Yet the representation of such vertical metalepses
asks us to imagine that these interactions or movements do take place.
Consequently, terminology that demarcates those domains of existence as
“worlds” rather than “levels” more accurately reflects what we are led to
believe happens in the course of ontological metalepses.
Moreover, the expansion of the category of ontological metalepsis to
include horizontal transmigrations actually necessitates a world- as op-
posed to level-based model. A fictional entity that originates in another
text may or may not be placed at the same diegetic level but will always
belong to another storyworld.8 For example, the first-person narrator of
Gilbert Sorrento’s Mulligan Stew is Martin Halpin, a minor character from
James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. According to Genette’s paradigm, he be-
longs to the extradiegetic level in Mulligan Stew and to the intradiegetic
level in Finnegans Wake. Irrespective of which diegetic level that Halpin
occupies in each text, however, he certainly inhabits more than one story-
170 J N T

world or, to express it another way, moves from one ontological domain to
another. Whether or not a fictional entity switches diegetic levels when
moving from one text to another, that movement is itself principally onto-
logical rather than diegetic. In both vertical and ontological metalepses,
therefore, a world-based model is better suited than Genette’s level model
for explaining both what actually transpires during ontological metalepses
and also the disorienting effects that they have on the reader.

Our Cognitive Model: Possible-Worlds Theory and Metalepsis

We utilize the concepts of transworld identity and counterparthood from
possible-worlds theory in order to elucidate what occurs in ontological
metalepsis (see Daniel Nolan’s Topics in the Philosophy of Possible
Worlds for a full account of possible-worlds theory). Both concepts ex-
plain the process whereby we can cross-identify an individual across dif-
ferent worlds, but they rely on distinct ontological perspectives: either an
‘Abstractionist’ or a ‘Concretist’ faction of possible-worlds logic, each of
which require some explanation before it can be applied. From the Ab-
stractionist perspective, such as that of Nicholas Rescher, Saul Kripke,
Jaakko Hintikka, or Alvin Plantinga, possible worlds represent the way
things might have been rather than how they actually are within an alter-
native ontological domain. In this model, the actual world is a tangible do-
main and possible worlds comprise imaginary conceptions; accordingly,
their constituents, including the individuals that populate them, are also
only imaginary. Conversely, from a ‘Concretist’ perspective, such as that
of David Lewis, possible worlds comprise tangible domains that materi-
ally exist and have the same ontological status as the actual world. Thus,
the constituents populating possible worlds exist in the same way in which
the individuals populating the actual world exist. As the label implies,
constituents of both worlds are concrete.
One consequence of the Abstractionist as opposed to the Concretist
philosophical position is that the same individual can travel between and
thus occur within a number of different ontological contexts. As the Ab-
stractionist Kripke explains, “in talking about what would have happened
to Nixon in a certain counterfactual situation, we are talking about what
would have happened to him” (44, emphasis original). Kripke denies the
simultaneous existence of individuals across worlds yet also asserts that
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 171

individuals can traverse a potentially infinite number of possible worlds

making up a system of reality—what Abstractionists refer to as
“transworld identity.” In contrast, a Concretist would view an entity in the
actual world—animate or otherwise—as never the same entity as in possi-
ble worlds because it cannot exist simultaneously in each. According to
Lewis, “worlds do not overlap: unlike Siamese twins, they have no shared
parts. . . . No possible individual is part of two worlds” (Counterfactuals
39). From this point of view, existing within a number of different worlds
is impossible for the same individual. The solution to the logical impasse
is to regard each individual within each possible world as a ‘counterpart’
of the others as opposed to the same individual travelling between
domains.
Possible-worlds theorists ascertain transworld identity or counterpart-
hood either through the rigid designation of a proper name or through es-
sential properties, such as the personal or professional characteristics that
identify an individual. Once they establish a correlation, they consider that
individual as having moved from one ontological domain to another
(transworld identity) or as existing in more than one domain at the same
time (counterparthood). These concepts, while originating in philosophical
logic, can be used in a narratological context to analyze metalepses be-
cause a storyworld is a particular type of possible world. For instance, in
Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, the fictional author, Dermot Trellis,
invents characters that check themselves into his hotel to torture him—a
case in which the characters ascend into an ontological domain separate
from the world in which they were initially created (172–73). That as-
cending metaleptic jump relies on the reader perceiving them as the same
entities regardless of whether they inhabit Trellis’ novel or reside in Trel-
lis’ hotel (see Figure 1).
While some instances of ontological metalepsis involve transworld
identity, others involve counterparthood because individuals exist in more
than one domain at the same time. For example when Martin Amis ap-
pears at the end of his novel Money to play chess with his protagonist,
John Self, the text suggests that, ontologically, Martin Amis has moved
from the actual world to the storyworld (372–79). However, even though
readers can recognize Martin Amis as the figure with whom John Self
plays chess, they must also recognize that Amis exists as an author in the
actual world. Defining the fictionalized author as an “ontologically am-
172 J N T

Figure 1. Ascending metalepsis as transworld identity in At Swim-Two-Birds

phibious figure,” McHale argues that “s/he functions at two theoretically

distinct levels of ontological structure: as the vehicle of autobiographical
fact within the projected fictional world; and as the maker of that world,
visibly occupying an ontological level superior to it” (202, emphasis orig-
inal). Counterpart theory thus helps to explain the ontological multiplicity
that Amis exemplifies in Money because a counterpart differs from the
complete movement of an individual from one domain to another. In her
examination of historical fiction, Ryan suggests that when we read a novel
about the Napoleonic Wars, “the Napoleon of TAW [Textual Actual
World] is regarded as a counterpart of the Napoleon of AW [Actual
World], linked to him through . . . transworld identity” (Possible 52). In
Ryan’s account, the term counterpart denotes an actual-world individual
within a storyworld, while the term transworld identity invokes the rela-
tion that unites that individual to a counterpart. Yet however necessary for
facilitating the process of cross-identification, these terms conflict with
each other because they rely on contradictory logical positions: a character
entity possessing transworld identity moves from one domain to another
unlike a counterpart of another individual who co-exists with multiple ver-
sions of the individual across discrete ontological domains. The descend-
ing metaleptic jump of Amis in his novel Money thus exemplifies counter-
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 173

parthood rather than transworld identity because it relies on Amis existing

in the actual world and Amis existing in the storyworld, so that as Figure 2
illustrates, the two figures simultaneously co-exist.
Counterpart theory can also illuminate horizontal metalepsis. For exam-
ple, in O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, Shanahan, originally a character in a
novel written by Dermont Trellis, is summoned by William Tracy, an au-
thor friend of Trellis, to appear in a cowboy romance story (53–55). In this
case, although we imagine that Shanahan has moved from the storyworld
that Trellis created to the storyworld that Tracy created, we must also, as
Figure 3 shows, maintain awareness of his ontological origins in Trellis’
novel in order to recognize the movement from one domain to another.
Shanahan in Tracy’s novel is a counterpart of Shanahan in Trellis’ novel, a
horizontal metalepsis that induces an ontological simultaneity like the “on-
tologically amphibious figure” of the fictionalized author (McHale 202).
In Avatars of Story, Ryan suggests that “ontological levels will become
entangled when an existent belongs to two or more levels at the same
time, or when an existent migrates from one level to the next, causing two
separate environments to blend” (207). Yet as the possible-worlds analysis
above shows, ontological metalepsis relies on the separation rather than
the entanglement or blending of ontological domains. In each case, an in-

Figure 2. Descending metalepsis as counterparthood in Money

174 J N T

Figure 3. Horizontal metalepsis as counterparthood in At Swim-Two-Birds

dividual (i.e. only one part of a given world) moves from a domain to an-
other whether by possessing transworld identity or by existing as a coun-
terpart. In suggesting a complete fusion of the two worlds involved in on-
tological metalepsis (208), Ryan’s conceptualization does not capture the
mechanics of the device accurately.
The model that we proposed above shows how to conceptualize met-
alepsis from an ontological point of view. However, used in isolation, it
does not provide a means of conceptualizing the function of ontological
metalepsis. Most studies recognize the alienating or defamiliarizing effect
of metalepsis (such as those of Fludernik, Kukkonen, McHale, Wagner, or
Wolf), and Genette likewise suggests that metalepsis “produces a strange-
ness that is either comical . . . or fantastic” (235). Observations about the
estranging effect of metalepsis, while accurate, nonetheless represent only
the first step toward a comprehensive analysis because they do not account
for the differing ways in which metalepsis functions in different texts. As
Pier notes in the “Afterword” to Metalepsis in Popular Culture, even
though metalepsis has “come to be seen as inherently bound to no specific
effect, but rather productive of a wide variety of effects, in some cases
even illusion-inducing,” it was “originally noted for its disruptive, anti-
illusionistic effects” (273). As the theoretical overview above shows, a
number of theorists have devised typologies of metalepsis, but those ty-
pologies usually do not provide interpretations of the metaleptic jumps in
the chosen texts.9 Analyzing the diverse thematic functions of metalepsis
is thus important and indeed necessary in a study such as this that seeks to
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 175

further our understanding of metalepsis and also capture the meanings that
metaleptic jumps generate in various different contexts.

Interpreting Metalepsis
One very basic assumption that we use in our interpretations is that no
matter how odd the textual surface of a narrative, it always partakes in a
meaningful communicative act. In this context, Marie-Louise Pratt argues
that the Gricean Cooperative Principle and its four maxims (quantity,
quality, relevance, and manner) remain in force even in the most bizarre
scenarios of the most disorienting texts (170). Following Pratt, we pre-
sume that certain intentions play a role in the production of vertical and
horizontal metalepses, and form hypotheses about those intentions. In con-
nection with this framework, we presume further that even the strangest
narrative ultimately concerns humans and/or human interests as well as
the world that humans inhabit (see also Ludwig 194). This argument
closely correlates with what Stein Haugom Olsen calls the “‘human inter-
est’ question” (67); that is, the supposition that fiction centrally focuses on
“mortal life: how to understand it and how to live it” (Nagel ix).
In addition, we discriminate between, on the one hand, the process of
world making—the cognitive reconstruction of ontological metalepsis—
and, on the other hand, that of meaning making: the interpretation of met-
aleptic jumps. More specifically, we argue that vertical and horizontal on-
tological metalepses only make sense when read as exemplifications of
particular themes rather than as mimetically motivated occurrences.10 In
this context, the term theme denotes

a specific representational component that recurs several

times, . . . in different variations—our quest for [which] of
a story is always a quest for something that is not unique to
this specific work. . . . [It is] the principle (or locus) of a
possible grouping of texts. It is one principle among many
since we often group together texts considered to have a
common theme, which are importantly and significantly
different in many other respects. (Brinker 33)

James Phelan also distinguishes between the mimetic, thematic, and syn-
thetic components of narrative, which he explicates as follows:
176 J N T

Responses to the mimetic component involve an audience’s

interest in the characters as possible people and in the nar-
rative world as like our own. Responses to the thematic
component involve an interest in the ideational function of
the characters and in the cultural, philosophical, or ethical
issues being addressed by the narrative. Responses to the
synthetic component involve an audience’s interest in and
attention to the characters and to the larger narrative as ar-
tificial constructs. (20)

We would like to propose that in numerous cases, one can link the syn-
thetic (of which ontological metalepsis is a subcategory) back to the
mimetic by foregrounding the thematic. In other words, by identifying a
specific thematic focus, we can explain unnatural scenarios so that they
communicate something meaningful to us.
The following five thematic uses of ontological metalepsis operate in
both print and digital texts to reveal a variety of uses across the two media:
(1) Metalepsis as a Form of Escapism
(2) Metalepsis as an Exercise of Control
(3) Metalepsis as Highlighting the Power and Potential Danger of Fiction
(4) Metalepsis as Mutual Understanding
(5) Metalepsis as a Challenge to the Creator—A Loss of Control over the Cre-
ation

Ascending metaleptic jumps are typically seen as deconstructing hierar-

chies intuitively and thus fulfilling a liberating function; descending met-
aleptic jumps are similarly seen as expressions of power primarily; and
horizontal metalepses are generally regarded as underscoring some sort of
mutuality. However, as we will show, metaleptic jumps can actually fulfill
an even wider array of functions.

Metalepsis as a Form of Escapism

In Woody Allen’s 1980 short story, “The Kugelmass Episode,” university
professor Kugelmass hires a magician to help him enter the storyworld of
Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in which he has an affair with Emma
Bovary. In this example of descending metalepsis, Kugelmass seeks so-
lace from a life in which he is “unhappily married for the second time,”
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 177

has “two dull sons,” and is “up to his neck in alimony and child support”
(61). As they spend more time together Kugelmass teaches Emma Bovary
about twentieth-century New York and, consequently, inspires her to visit.
In an ascending metaleptic jump, Emma moves to New York and indulges
in modern life with Kugelmass; they go “to the movies, ha[ve] dinner in
Chinatown, pass two hours at a discotheque, and [go] to bed with a TV
movie” (72). All seems idyllic until modernity strains their relationship:
Emma cannot get a job and Kugelmass cannot afford to pay for her con-
tinued stay in the Plaza Hotel, resulting in both parties willing Emma’s re-
turn to her original storyworld in which she eventually succeeds. The nar-
rative ends with Kugelmass mistakenly transported into the storyworld of
“an old text-book, Remedial Spanish,” where he is chased by “a large and
hairy irregular verb” (78).
All of these metaleptic jumps involve transworld identity because
Kugelmass disappears from the primary storyworld—his wife barks at
him “where the hell do you go all the time?”—while Emma vanishes from
the novel: a Stanford professor states that “now she’s gone from the book”
(70,72). Moreover, at the end, Kugelmass remains “unaware” of what
transpired in the primary storyworld of New York (78). Thus, the charac-
ters make transitions between storyworlds rather than generating copies—
or counterparts—of themselves across those storyworlds. McHale inter-
prets Allen’s short story as a “parable of over-reaching desire,” and,
insofar as Kugelmass cannot sustain his relationship with Emma, that
reading is certainly valid (123). However, it is worth noting that both
Kugelmass and Bovary seek to flee their original storyworlds to pursue
what they perceive as more exciting existences in another. Each metalep-
tic jump in this narrative is therefore used as a means of escape. Further-
more, the fact that Emma returns to her original nineteenth-century story-
world while Kugelmass persists in his metaleptic endeavors away from the
actual world suggests that modernity in particular is responsible for the
characters’ unhappiness and interest in escapism.

Metalepsis as an Exercise of Control

The novel At Swim-Two-Birds consists of numerous embedded story-
worlds. The initial narrator in the novel’s first storyworld (SW 1) is the
older version of an unnamed student at University College Dublin. This
178 J N T

narrating ‘I’ tells us about his student days. Within another storyworld
(SW 2), the experiencing ‘I,’ the younger version of the narrating ‘I,’ in-
vents the story of novelist Dermot Trellis, which he discusses regularly
with a fellow student called Brinsley. That takes place within yet another
embedded storyworld (SW 3), in which Trellis lives in the Red Swan
Hotel, frequently borrows ideas and characters from the Western writer
William Tracy, and in turn writes a novel about John Furriskey, the leg-
endary Finn MacCool, and Sheila Lamont, characters who inhabit a fourth
storyworld (SW 4). To complicate the novel even further, some of these
characters begin to narrate stories of their own, stories that evoke even
more storyworlds. For instance, MacCool repeatedly confronts us with
segments of the medieval Irish tale Buile Suibhne about the frenzy of
Sweeny (SW 5b), from which the title At Swim-Two-Birds is taken (68).
The novel teems with metaleptic jumps. One instance occurs when the
celebrated figure Sweeny joins the characters on their journey to their au-
thor’s hotel after suddenly falling from a tree (125). Later on, at the Red
Swan Hotel, Orlick Trellis and other characters make up their own story,
in which they torture and try their author in such a way as to have an ac-
tual effect on him and his bodily constitution (172–73). Finally, when Der-
mot Trellis is about to be executed inside the characters’ narrative, Teresa,
the maid of the Red Swan Hotel, accidentally burns the manuscript, “the
pages which made and sustained the existence of Furriskey and his true
friends” (215–16). That burning ends not only the existence of Trellis’
characters, but also the events in his own world (SW 3) and that of the
Irish student (SW 2).
Most of the metaleptic jumps in this novel are vertical rather than hor-
izontal,11 and with the exception of Trellis’ rape of Sheila Lamont, one of
his fictional characters, most metalepses are ascending rather than de-
scending (144). In other words, they move from a lower to a higher story-
world. One way of interpreting the ascending metaleptic jumps would be
to argue that the novel is primarily interested in deconstructing hierarchies
and power structures. The student narrator attempts to oppose his own au-
thoritarian uncle by creating characters that oppose Trellis, their despotic
creator. However, toward the end of the novel, one realizes that its various
metaleptic jumps notably exclude the first storyworld (SW 1) and that the
primary narrator’s power consequently remains unchallenged. Also, dur-
ing the course of the novel, the student narrator transforms from a liberal
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 179

proponent of a democratic approach to the novel to an authoritarian tyrant

who enjoys absolute power over his story and the stories-within-the-story
(27). The destruction of all the characters at the conclusion most obviously
signals the tyrannical reign over his creation. Even though At Swim-Two-
Birds comes to seem by this point a rather conservative text reproducing
hierarchies rather than challenging them, we would argue that the novel as
a whole warns us of the dangers of hierarchical positions or, in other
words, that it teaches us how very seductive power can be and how, if in-
dividuals are in a position to abuse it, they usually will.
John Fowles’ neo-Victorian novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman
(1969) makes a similar point. The author exists in the actual world—or,
more specifically, in the twentieth century, “the age of Alain Robbe-Grillet
and Roland Barthes”—yet abruptly appears in the storyworld of Victorian
England “in 1867,” where he shares a train compartment with Charles,
one of the novel’s major protagonists, and comments on nineteenth-
century sexuality from the perspective of his contemporary worldview (9,
79, 258–61). During the journey, the bearded author (note that John
Fowles was bearded, too) tells us that he has “the look an omnipotent god
. . . should be shown to have” and contemplates the question of what he
should do with his character (389). Their joint journey then ends as
follows:

I am suddenly aware that Charles has opened his eyes and

is looking at me. There is something more than disapproval
in his eyes now; he perceives I am either a gambler or men-
tally deranged. I return his disapproval, and my florin to
my purse. He picks up his hat, brushes some invisible
speck of dirt (a surrogate for myself) from its nap and
places it on his head. (390)

This descending metaleptic jump differs from Genette’s authorial metalep-

sis insofar as the novel represents the author as actually descending into
the world of a character who can also see him. Nevertheless, their func-
tions seem to converge in this case: according to Fludernik, “authorial
metalepsis closely correlates with ‘the baring of the mimetic illusion by
undermining the realistic expectation that the narrator merely tells a story
over which he has no power’” (“Scene Shift” 384). We read the descend-
180 J N T

ing metaleptic jump in The French Lieutenant’s Woman as a similar dis-

play of control or, more simply, as Linda Hutcheon discusses in Narcissis-
tic Narrative, a form of narcissism that allows the author to brag about his
abilities in relation to the tales that he relates (57–58).
Unlike Money, this novel exemplifies counterparthood rather than
transworld identity since its author exists in two realms at the same time:
as an author figure in the storyworld of the protagonists and as an author
writing the novel in the actual world. The appearance that Amis makes in
Money nonetheless resembles that which the author makes in French Lieu-
tenant’s Woman since the ignorance of Amis’ protagonist underscores his
omnipotence. Amis admits that he has “fucked you [John Self] around,”
but that character still naively believes in his autonomy: “He’s got me
down for a no-nothing,” Self professes, “but he doesn’t know” (372–73,
emphasis original). This form of descending metalepsis can be seen as
particularly self-indulgent given that Amis himself ultimately controls the
authority ascribed to the author.

Metalepsis as Highlighting the Power and

Potential Danger of Fiction
In Stuart Moulthrop’s hypertext fiction Victory Garden, the storyworld ap-
pears to invade the actual world, albeit via visual rather than verbal means.
This narrative is set during the first Gulf War and a lexia entitled
“. . . and . . .” describes the demise of a character named Emily as she slips
into unconsciousness during a missile attack. There are no hyperlinks in
this lexia, so the reader accesses the next lexia by default. In the succeed-
ing lexia, also entitled “. . . and . . . ,” the same text appears as in the first,
but the screen appears to have been smashed. Visually, therefore, the hy-
pertext suggests that the storyworld has physically influenced the typo-
graphical materiality of the text that we are reading in the actual world. In
this case, an inanimate entity, not a character or narrator, encroaches into
the actual world and thus possesses transworld identity. That Victory Gar-
den shows other components of a storyworld performing metaleptic jumps
is significant from a theoretical point of view because most studies of met-
alepsis focus on the movement of a character and/or narrator between on-
tological domains.
The ascending metalepsis in the two “. . . and . . .” lexias suggests that
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 181

the storyworld of Victory Garden coexists ontologically alongside the ac-

tual world with action unfolding in real time. The blast in the storyworld
that has the capacity to influence the actual world parodies the perceived
notion of fiction as having the power to influence an actual reader. It also
serves to remind us that the Gulf War at the center of Victory Garden’s
narrative is not simply a fictional construct, but rather a phenomenon that
was (and indeed continues to be) relevant in the actual world. The violent
shattering of the computer screen not only succeeds in showing the power
of fiction, but also serves as a stark admonition to the reader to consider
his or her position in relation to the conflict. Finally, the metaleptic
intrusions demonstrate that all elements of a storyworld—not just the
characters—affect readers.
As we know, fiction can have both positive and negative effects. Julio
Cortázar’s short story “The Continuity of Parks” focuses on the latter.
More specifically, it confronts us with a descending metaleptic jump to ex-
pose the potential dangers of fiction. A businessman reads a suspense
novel in which two lovers plan a murder: “Word by word, immersed in the
sordid dilemma of hero and heroine, letting himself go toward where the
images came together and took on color and movement, he was witness to
the final encounter in the mountain cabin” (63). Later on, through a de-
scending metaleptic jump, the reader appears in the storyworld of the
characters about which he or she is reading: “The door of the salon, and
then the knife in his hand, the light from the great windows, the high back
of an armchair covered in green velvet, the head of the man in the chair
reading a novel” (65). This metalepsis relies on counterparthood because
the reader exists as a figure in the suspense novel, while simultaneously
reading about that figure; hence two versions—or counterparts—of the
reader exist at the same time instead of the reader moving from one do-
main to another.
McHale argues that “the ‘continuity’ in this text is the paradoxical con-
tinuity between the nested narrative and the primary narrative, violating
and thus foregrounding the hierarchy of ontological levels” (120). More-
over, Cortázar’s short story cautions that the involvement of readers in sto-
ries and the immersive power of narratives can be taken to such a high de-
gree as to become dangerous or even self-destructive. The businessman’s
enmeshment in the suspense novel is so extreme that he lacks critical dis-
tance: he may realize that the couple is planning to kill somebody, but he
182 J N T

does not realize that he will be the victim. “The Continuity of Parks”
therefore urges us to keep reality and fiction separate and beware of im-
mersing ourselves in narrative.

Metalepsis as Mutual Understanding

Toward the end of B. S. Johnson’s Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry,
the first-person narrator regretfully warns the protagonist Christie that he
does not feel able to “take this novel much further,” but reassures the pro-
tagonist that he will “go on to the end” (165). Christie comforts him, ad-
vising the author “not to be sorry,” and asks him “So I do go on a little
longer?” to which he poignantly replies, “Yes, Christie, you go on to the
end” (165). This descending metalepsis involves a relationship of mutual
understanding, at least initially, since the author’s counterpart realizes that
his novel is almost complete and the character accepts his fate. In the
pages that follow, the author endows Christie with good fortune: his girl-
friend moves into his flat, he acquires all of the equipment necessary to
fulfill his ambition of blowing up the House of Commons, and the chapter
heading informs us that “Christie really does have Everything” (173).
However, when a diagnosis of terminal cancer counters this good fortune,
Christie becomes angry, threatening the author that “they’ll discover a
cure for cancer. And that will make you look stupid” and complaining that
“you shouldn’t be bloody writing novels about it, you should be out there
bloody doing something about it” (179–80). Despite these outbursts, the
author presents Christie’s subsequent death respectfully and leaves intact
the positive relationship between creator and created.
A similar type of humility is apparent in Shelley Jackson’s hypertext
fiction Patchwork Girl. However, whether a metalepsis occurs in this text
depends on the path that the reader takes through it, which shows how the
medium affects the operation of metalepses in hypertext environments. In
Patchwork Girl, a female author writes about a monster known as the
“patchwork girl,” who is comprised of body parts much like the monster
from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Crucially, some lexias suggest that the
patchwork girl is a fictional character permanently residing in a novel
written by someone called Mary Shelley. Other lexias suggest that an as-
cending metalepsis takes place whereby the patchwork girl joins the story-
world to which her author, Mary Shelley, belongs.
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 183

The metalepsis in Patchwork Girl is a case of transworld identity

rather than of counterparthood because the protagonist moves perma-
nently from the storyworld in which she was created into that from which
she was created. Once she arrives in the creator’s storyworld, the creator
becomes infatuated, “crav[ing] her company” and describing her as “beau-
tiful,” someone who “wants to learn,” and “exuberant, ferocious, loving,
unhinged” (in the lexias “crave,” “she stood,” “learn,” and “infant” respec-
tively). In this metaleptic version of the narrative, the female monster
parts with her creator and becomes “depressed, suffering a kind of post-
partum blues in reverse” (“aftermath”). However, both parties understand
that the separation is both necessary and inevitable for her independence,
with the metalepsis thematizing the respectful relationship between the
creator and the created. In either version of the text—that with and that
without metalepsis—the overriding message is ultimately positive because
the relationship between the characters is congenial, if a little intense.

Metalepsis as a Challenge to the Creator—

A Loss of Control over the Creation
Richard Holeton’s hypertext fiction Figurski at Findhorn on Acid presents
a multifaceted storyworld through the juxtaposition of mundane episodes
with bizarre situations. The hypertext structure is used to house a frag-
mented collection of narratives involving three characters: Frank Figurski,
a failed PhD student on parole for the murder of his supervisor; Nguyen
Van Tho, a circus performer who flips coffee cups in roadside diners, oth-
erwise known as the No-Hands Cup Flipper; and Fatima Michelle
Vieuchanger, a French-Moroccan journalist disguised as a man disguised
as a woman. Throughout the text, the characters exchange a series of com-
bative emails with an individual called Richard Holeton, whom we inter-
pret as the storyworld counterpart of the hypertext’s author in the actual
world. Referring to her portrayal in the narrative, Fatima scolds, “Richard,
Please don’t be constructing me as some spokeswoman for the countercul-
ture of the ’70s, speaker for the dead mouthpiece for your own nostalgia,”
to which Holeton obediently replies, “OK but it does seem from reading
your previous publications that you do have views about the “movement’“
(“2.2.13”). Similarly, Frank emails Holeton in an attempt to secure a fur-
ther supply of LSD: “Don’t cut me off now,” he writes, “keep the acid
184 J N T

flowing” (“2.1.14”). Holeton responds by commenting on Frank’s behav-

ior: “tolerance and making good first impressions were never your strong
suits” (“2.1.15”). The Holeton counterpart does not always obey his char-
acters’ instructions or submit to their requests; however, that he does en-
gage in these dialogues at all and responds to his characters’ criticisms
suggest that the characters do hold some power in their relationships with
him and that he is not an omnipotent author. The descending metaleptic
jumps thus thematize successful challenges to a creator, most especially in
that the characters do not accept their fate but rather monitor their own
progress as it unfolds.
A more disturbing yet more powerful account in which the creator
loses control over his own creation arises in Coover’s novel The Public
Burning. This narrative features Uncle Sam, a mythical figure whom the
people of the United States invent to signify their national interest, who
transmigrates from the public imagination into the novel’s primary story-
world (in an ascending metaleptic jump). At the end, he sodomizes
Richard Nixon, the first-person narrator:

“Come here, boy,” he said, smiling frostily and jabbing his

recruitment finger at me with one hand, unbuttoning his
striped pantaloons with the other: “I want YOU!” . . .
“Please!” I whimpered. “I can’t—!” “I’ll help you,” he
whispered girlishly, tickling my rectum. “Come on, loosen
up, Nick! Unlock the old Snack Shack and impart to
me summa your noble spirit, like, eh, like the old lady
says . . .” . . . “No!” I cried. “Stop!” But too late, he was al-
ready lodged deep in my rectum and ramming it in
deeper—oh Christ! It felt like he was trying to shove the
whole goddam Washington Monument up my ass! “For
God’s sake!” I screamed. “You’re tearing me apart!”
(530–32)

This violent scene in which a mythical figure, Uncle Sam, sexually abuses
a real person, Nixon, highlights potential discrepancies between the na-
tional interest and the people who should be in a position to define it.12 To
put this point slightly differently, the rape scene illustrates that the desires,
wishes, and fears of the people may bind and imprison U.S. politicians to
such an extent that they cannot make any independent decisions. From this
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 185

perspective, The Public Burning is a postmodern version of the Franken-

stein novel in which the created acquires a life of its own and agitates
against its creator.
Uncle Sam’s unnatural “arrival” in the primary storyworld transpires
as follows: he “popped virgin-born and fully constituted from the shat-
tered seed-poll of the very Enlightenment, . . . already chin-whiskered and
plug-hatted and all rigged out in his long-tailed blue and his striped pan-
taloons” (6). Furthermore, his “cunning powers of conjuration, transmuta-
tion, and magical consumption” inspire people to call him “the American
Autolycus” (7). Uncle Sam directs the gradual erosion of the public sphere
by combining elements of theatrical performance, advertizing, popular
culture, and entertainment. Christian Moraru speaks in this context of the
“public burning of the public sphere” whereby “rational exchange is being
superseded by ritualistic, carnivalesque mediatization” (65–66). Hence,
not only does the national interest of the U.S. rape Nixon; so too does its
mass-mediated, fetishistic approach to public opinion and political solu-
tions.
The famous buggery scene, in which an invention violates one of its
inventors, thus represents the appropriation of and domination over politi-
cians that the show-business-like form of politics has created. John Z. Gu-
zlowski sees Uncle Sam as an “embodiment of the American spirit,” for
even though he is a creature of the public imagination, he is also “a God-
like presence in The Public Burning, and Nixon plays to him constantly in
the hope of being selected to be his next incarnation, the next president”
(62). Indeed, Nixon has always wanted “to wear the right mask for Sam
because he is hoping that Sam will take over his personality entirely,” and
at one point, he admits that

there are people who do not wish to surrender to the Incar-

nation, who do not wish to be possessed by Uncle Sam, be
used by him, who do not wish to feel his presence pushing
out from behind their own features, distorting them, print-
ing them on the blank face of the world, people who fear
the forces leaking out their fingertips, the pressure in the
skull, the cramp in the groin. Let me say right here that I
was never one of them. (Guzlowski 62; Coover 261)
186 J N T

Throughout the novel, Nixon plays any role and wears any mask to please
his potential voters, at one point even acknowledging that he is “no longer a
free agent” (174). His submission to Uncle Sam and to voters’ approval cul-
minates in the rape scene, which demonstrates the degree of self-destruction
involved in acting on the “public stage” as a politician and ultimately the de-
gree to which Nixon has become a prostitute of his own approach (66).

Conclusion
As we have shown, ontological metalepses represent a conceptually chal-
lenging type of metalepsis because they are properly unnatural: all in-
stances of ontological metalepsis are physically impossible and some are
also logically impossible. Ontological metalepses, which can transport us
to the most remote areas imaginable, do not serve merely to imitate the ac-
tual world; rather, they closely correlate with reading contracts based not
on verisimilitude, but on a shared knowledge of illusion (Baron 298). We
have identified three different types of ontological metalepsis—namely,
ascending, descending, and horizontal metalepses—and suggested a new
model, based on possible-worlds theory, for conceptualizing them. We
have shown how within this framework the concepts of transworld iden-
tity and counterparthood assist in analyzing metaleptic jumps. In the case
of the former, a character moves from one world to another; in the case of
the latter, a character exists in two different worlds at the same time. Ap-
plying our world-based model and analyzing metalepses as represented in-
teractions between worlds rather than as diegetic levels allows the analysis
to more accurately reflect the ontologically transgressive nature of met-
alepses and more accurately account for the defamiliarizing effects that
they have on readers.
As we have further shown, despite the obvious anti-mimetic thrust of
ontological metalepses, they are not purely ornamental or playful, but con-
vey certain thematic messages with the following functions: exposing es-
capism, critiquing the abuse of power, highlighting the dangers of fiction,
exemplifying mutual understanding, and, finally, illustrating confronta-
tions with creators or their loss of control over their own creations. These
examples of ontological metalepses taken from both print and digital texts
contribute to transmedial narratology in showing that these five functions
can occur irrespective of the media in which the devices appear.
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 187

Notes
1. The authors wish to thank the British Academy for funding this research (Small Re-
search Grant Ref: SG100637).

2. The term storyworld denotes “mental models of who did what to and with whom,
when, where, why, and in what fashion in the world to which interpreters relocate . . .
as they work to comprehend a narrative” (Herman, “Storyworld” 570).

3. Unnatural narratology seeks to “describe the ways in which projected storyworlds de-
viate from real-world frames, and . . . then tries to interpret these ‘deviations’” (Alber
et al. 116). Furthermore, Jan Alber and Monika Fludernik argue that “while traditional
narratologists such as Stanzel and Genette primarily focused on the eighteenth-century
to early twentieth-century novel, transmedial approaches seek to rebuild narratology
so that it can handle new genres and storytelling practices across a wide variety of
media,” such as “plays, films, narrative poems, conversational storytelling, hyperfic-
tions, cartoons, ballets, video clips, paintings, statues, advertisements, historiography,
news stories, narrative representations in medical or legal contexts, and so forth”
(8–9). The term ‘Storyspace’ refers to the software in which some hypertext fictions
are produced (see also Alice Bell’s The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction). Story-
space hypertext fictions are read from a computer and comprised of fragments of text,
known as lexias, which are connected by hyperlinks. Storyspace hypertexts are pub-
lished on CD-ROMs and distributed by Eastgate Systems. When reading a Storyspace
hypertext, the reader can click the ‘Enter’ key on his or her keyboard to follow a de-
fault path through the text. Alternatively, he or she can follow designated hyperlinks
which lead him or her to other parts of the text.

4. In his recent Métalepse (2004), Genette analyzes metalepsis in different media, includ-
ing painting, theater, film, and television.

5. The following passage from Diderot’s Jack the Fatalist and His Master [Jacques le fa-
taliste et son maître] is an example of authorial metalepsis: “You see, reader, how con-
siderate I am. With a flick of the whip on the horses drawing the coach draped in black
I could bring together Jack, his master, the tax officers the mounted guard, and the rest
of the procession, at the very next inn, interrupting the story of John’s captain and pro-
voking you as much as I pleased” (Diderot 39; Fludernik 384). See also Genette’s Nar-
rative Discourse (234). The following passage from Balzac’s The Inventor’s Sufferings
[Les souffrances de l’inventeur] is an example of rhetorical metalepsis: “While the
vulnerable churchman climbs the ramps of the Angoulême, it is not useless to explain
the network of interests into which he was going to set foot’ (qtd. in Genette 65, 235;
qtd. in Fludernik 386). In such cases, the author or narrator only descends into the
188 J N T

storyworld as if he himself were an inhabitant of this world. Hence, like Fludernik, we

would classify such instances as metaphoric metalepses that differ from actual onto-
logical transgressions.

6. William Nelles distinguishes between what he calls ‘intrametaleptic’ and ‘extramet-

aleptic’ jumps: the former denotes movement from “an ‘outer’ embedding level to an
‘inner’ embedded level,” while the latter refers to “movement ‘outward’ as opposed to
the movement ‘inward’” (154). Following Pier, we define the former case as ‘de-
scending’ and the latter case as ‘ascending’ metalepsis. It is also worth noting that
Nelles’s example of an extrametaleptic jump (“Virgil has Aeneas allude to Catullus 76,
lines 17–26”) is only a case of metaphorical metalepsis. The video “Take on Me”
(1985) by the Norwegian pop group A-ha contains examples of both descending and
ascending ontological metalepsis: a woman sits in a café reading a comic book (in
color sequences) when a hand suddenly appears to draw her into the storyworld of the
comic, where she meets the singer of A-ha Morten Harket (in black and white se-
quences in the style of a comic book). Later on, the clip features not just descending
but also ascending metalepsis: the woman reappears in the café and runs home, while
Harket suddenly moves from the world of the comic into her apartment, i.e. the video’s
primary world.

7. On postmodern fiction, see David Herman’s “Toward a Formal Description” and Brian
McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction; on postmodern devices in hypertext fiction, see
Ryan’s Avatars, Bell’s Possible Worlds and “Ontological Boundaries,” Daniel Pun-
day’s “Involvement, Interruption, and Inevitability,” and Raine Koskimaa’s Digital
Literature; on multimedia works, see Astrid Ensslin’s Canonizing Hypertext and
Ryan’s Narrative across Media.

8. Examples of horizontal metalepses differ from instances in which the same character
appears in a series of texts by the same author as, for example, in the Sherlock Holmes
series by Arthur Conan Doyle. In this case, the same storyworld is represented over
several publications so that ontological boundaries are not breached (see McHale’s ac-
count of “retour de personage” [57–8]).

9. One exception is Nelles who discusses various types of metalepsis, narrative embed-
ding, and their thematic significance.

10. On world-making as opposed to meaning-making, see David Bordwell’s Narration in

the Fiction Film (8–9) and Lubomír Doležel’s Heterocosmica (160, 165); on thematic
concerns, see Alber’s “Impossible Storyworlds” (85–87).
 Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology 189

11. All of these vertical metaleptic jumps involve transworld identity because a character
moves from one storyworld to another. Only Shanahan’s transmigration into one of
William Tracy’s cowboy novels and the transmigrations of Slug Willard and Shorty
Andrews into Trellis’ novel involve counterparthood because those horizontal met-
alepses necessitate the existence of two simultaneous counterparts: one in the original
storyworld and one in the new storyworld (53, 115).

12. See also Richard Walsh’s Novel Arguments (96).

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