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J. M. CoetzeeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
A frame narrative, or a frame story, is a narrative that tells or reveals the central narrative in literature. Frame narratives typically use a narrator who is a character within the novel, experiencing their own story, to narrate the events surrounding the novel’s protagonist. This often takes the form of a character (sometimes the protagonist) recounting a tale to another character, wherein the tale being recounted is the focus of the text. The initial narrative line is delivered by an external narrator, Coetzee. Coetzee has a limited omniscient perspective. The narration is considered limited because it is given from John’s perspective. Elizabeth becomes a non-traditional secondary narrative during her long segments of dialogue in her lectures, answers, and debate responses.
The use of frame story is a genre convention within metafiction. The frame story becomes more complex in the fact that The Lives of Animals was first presented as lectures; Coetzee’s delivery of the lectures is a frame narrative for the story of The Lives of Animals, which itself contains the frame narrative of Elizabeth’s family life through which we receive her lectures.
By J. M. Coetzee
Boyhood
J. M. Coetzee
Disgrace
J. M. Coetzee
Elizabeth Costello
J. M. Coetzee
Foe
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In the Heart of the Country
J. M. Coetzee
Life and Times of Michael K
J. M. Coetzee
The Schooldays of Jesus
J. M. Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians
J. M. Coetzee