Doing away with safety : A study on mourning and metafiction in How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Abstract: This essay works with Freud’s theory of melancholia, and Hutcheon’s theories of parody and metafictional writing to explore Charles Yu’s novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. By looking at how both theories handle the subject of identity and unconscious formations, this study argues that the relationship between the main character and his father visualizes the process of creating, as well as evolving a dialectic discourse regarding the function of literature. It also showcases the opportunity afforded by parody and self-aware writing, to create a narrative gap that allows for objective criticism that places the reader in an active role in the construction of the text.