History or Dream: A Comparative Study of Tom Jones and Hongloumeng on Authorially Claimed Fictionality

Abstract: This essay makes a comparative study of Tom Jones and Hongloumeng from the perspective of the matter of fictionality. Both texts include authorial intrusions that straightforwardly signify the fictionality of the texts, complicating the problem of fictionality in the texts by affecting the delivery and connotation of the messages, or the truths, of the texts, while such fictionality functions distinctively differently in these two works. In comparison, this essay further elaborates on how authorially claimed fictionality splits texts into multiple layers among which readers are demanded to properly posit themselves among while reading, and how the progress of readers reading of these layered texts complicates and resolves the matter of fictionality to drive readers to perceive the messages of the works. While Tom Jones fictionality progresses by distancing readers from both the storyworld and the authorial narrator, HLMs fictionality functions by devouring both the readers and the author to immerse them in the storyworld. By different approaches to fictionality, the two texts lead readers to different types of truths. Therefore, this essay might offer a glimpse into the matter of fictionality in novel, on how fictionality constructs the nature of novel.