Fiction and Fact:A Historiographic Metafictional Approach to Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes employs postmodern devices to recreate and discuss Parrot,Flaubert's life and his related comments,so that he could find out the fact of history.Based on Linda Hutcheon's theory of historiographic metaficon,this thesis analyzes parody,mefatiction and pastiche in Flaubert's Parrot,and concludes that Barnes deeply doubts the traditional concepts such as truth,history,objectivity and language.The author conveys his suspicion of tradition through the use of the parody of all kinds of forms,the self-conscious narrator and the pastiche of multiple perspectives.This thesis concludes that history is subjective and paradoxical,instead of being objective and linear.