SOURCE: Herzberger, David K. “Split Referentiality and the Making of Character in Recent Spanish Metafiction.” Modern Language Notes 103, no. 2 (March 1988): 419-35.

In the following essay, Herzberger analyzes the characters of the Spanish metafictional novel of the 1970s and 1980s.

Character in fiction is an invention. Even when real people from outside the text are admitted to its created world, or when known historical events are used to designate time, place, or incident, readers are aware that the characters of a novel are not beings of flesh and blood, but fictional entities made of words. In many instances, however, and particularly in the case of the Realist tradition, characters are made to think, speak, and act as if they were born into the natural flow of life and able to partake of its depth and fullness. The “as if” is crucial here, of course, because it sustains the illusion...