Breaking the fourth wall and (meta)fictional reference

Abstract

I investigate statements in fiction that ‘break the fourth wall’ (i.e. statements through which a fictional character somehow acknowledges the fictionality of their world) and suggest that they are a mirror image of ‘parafictional statements’—that is, reports on what is true in some fiction. I explore two possible analyses, according to which statements that break the fourth wall are either a type of fictional statement, or are a type of metafictional statement, and propose a synthesis of these two analyses. I discuss how the proposed analysis relates to different interpretative strategies for dealing with inconsistency in fiction and discuss several potential counterexamples to the proposed analysis.