TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction p. 2
2. Chapter 1 'Self-referentiality via language' p. 3
(i) The use of language p. 3
(ii) Intertwining of English and Hindi words p. 4
(iii) Language interruptions p. 10
(iv) The standard against the colloquial p. 15
3. Chapter 2 'Self-referentiality via narrational strategy' p. 20
(i) The narrative act p. 20
(ii) Narrational ambiguity p. 21
(iii) Breaking the chronology p. 26
(iv) Narrational strategy p. 31
4. Chapter 3 'Autothematic elements' p. 38
(i) Introduction p. 38
(ii) A novel about a novel p. 40
(iii) Unreliable narrator p. 47
5. Conclusion p. 53
6. Summary in Polish p. 54
7. Bibliography p. 55
Introduction
Self - referentiality, as well as autothematicism, has been recently highly valued in literature. The sociologistErving Goffman claims that at times 'a performer may be taken in by his own act, convinced at the moment that the impression of reality which he fosters is the one and only reality' . This illusion of reality in literary 'performance' may also seize (and, indeed, does seize) the reader who fails to realize that the text before him/her is a literary-fictional artefact rather than a direct representation of reality. On the other hand, autothematicism is taken into consideration whenever the author shows the reader at the same time both the process and the result of the act of creation .
The aim of my dissertation is to elucidate how significant and innovative those literary devices are, and to what extent they supplement the comprehension of a novel. I am going to analyse Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children as a canonical example of self-referential and at the same time autothematic literature. The focus of my attention is the use of language and specific kind of narration, as means of self-referentiality and autothematicism
