culture, out of which Jo’s narrative is constructed. Furthermore, these fictions also
inform and obscure the perceptions and interpretations of other characters in the
primary narrative. The point is that by appropriating the stories and culture of one social
group and re-writing it as ‘romance’ (that is, fiction or myth), the dominant culture
effectively writes this group out of ‘history’ and out of the present. With his
representation of the knights, then, Hunt inverts the usual direction of metaleptic
transgression, so that the primary narrative disrupts and transgresses the secondary
narrative.
Fantastic children’s literature is characterised by widespread representation of
heterotopias (Stephens 1992a: 52). Diana Wynne Jones and Peter Hunt both construct
temporal heterotopias in which a number of possible time zones co-exist in order to
overtly play with the relations between history and the temporal structuring of
narrative. Jones’s Witch Week is premised on the possibility that parallel alternative
worlds are constructed through spatio-temporal divergences which occur at decisive
points in history—for example events such as battles, ‘where it is possible for things to
go two ways’ (1982/1989:171). This works self-reflectively to represent the kinds of
narrative choices which writers make in constructing fictions (Waterhouse 1991:5). In
The Maps of Time (1983) Hunt takes this idea a step further: narrative paths diverge as
characters perceive and imagine events as occurring differently.
Macaulay’s picture books quite overtly play with narrative and temporal linearity. He
uses a recursive narrative structure in Why the Chicken Crossed the Road (1991). Black
and White (1990) is an elaborate play with perception, representation and
interpretation. It consists of four narrative strands. Each is represented using different
narrative and pictorial techniques, and they become visually mixed in the latter part of
the text as the visual frames are broken by images which mirror and spill over into
adjacent frames. The four narratives are linked by repeated images and ‘story’ elements,
which imply that the four stories might constitute aspects of the same story. However,
readers’ attempts to construct a single logical chronological narrative are frustrated
through the confusion of logical, temporal and causal relations between the four
strands. Ultimately the text refuses interpretive closure. What we get is layering of
different but similar fictions, interwoven into and endlessly reflecting each other.
Mise en abyme and self-reflective devicesThe term mise en abyme refers to a representation or narrative segment, which is
embedded within a larger narrative, and which reflects, reproduces or mirrors an aspect
of the larger primary narrative (Prince 1987/1988:53; McHale 1987/1989: 124–125;
Hutcheon 1980:54–56). It usually functions to indicate ways in which ‘the larger
narrative might be interpreted’ (Stephens 1993:105). Narrative aspects which might be
reflected include: the story or themes of the primary narrative; its narrative situation—
such as the relationship between the narrator and narratee; or the style of the primary
narrative text (McHale 1987/1989:124–125).
In realist novels a story, photo, painting or drawing will often function as a mise en
abyme to reflect the thematic concerns of the primary narrative. For example, in Zibby
Oneal’s The Language of Goldfish the main character, Carrie, executes a series of
400 TYPES AND GENRES