For this thesis, I examine different definitions of metafiction and examine Katherine Hayles’s concept of technotexts. I focus on three metafictional elements: a story about a story; a story about history; and the author’s criticism of critics. I analyze the metafictional and technotextual elements in Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper and Arthur Spiegelman’s Maus. Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes provide some insight into metafictional concerns with the author. I argue that these two authors use metafictional and technotextual elements to assert their authorial control and to explore their ethical responsibility as authors. In doing so, these authors resist the notions of deconstruction. Instead, they aim to reclaim the ethical responsibility that comes with being an author. Both of these novels represent different approaches to metafiction (graphic narrative and nonconventional prose novel). In Plascencia’s novel, I detail and analyze the metafictional and technotextual elements that assert his authorial control. In Spiegelman’s Maus, metafiction allows for a series of different narratives. These narratives allow Spiegelman to explore his authorial control and responsibility. I also explore the ways technotexts and metafiction are different and compare the ways these two forms work within these two novels. I make the case that technotexts are not necessarily concerned with metafiction. Instead, I will focus on the ways these two novels create certain metafictional elements that create the reflexive loops associated with technotexts.
