Brian McHale, Pöstmödernist Fictiön:
"... the dominant [component] of postmodernist fiction is ontological. That is, postmodernist fiction deploys strategies which engage and foreground questions [which can be called] 'post-cognitive': 'Which world is this?''What is to be done in it?' 'Which of my selves is to do it?' Other typical postmodernist questions bear either on the ontology of the literary text itself or on the ontology of the world which it projects, for instance: What is a world?; What kinds of worlds are there, how are they constituted, and how do they differ?; What happens when different kinds of worlds are placed into confrontation, or when boundaries between worlds are violated?; What is the mode of existence of a text, and what is the mode of existence of the world (or worlds) it projects?; How is a projected world structured? And so on." (McHale 10).
Brian McHale, Pöstmödernist Fictiön:
"... a general thesis about modernist fiction: the dominant [component] of modernist fiction is epistemological. That is, modernist fiction deploys strategies which engage and foreground questions such as ...'How can I interpret this world of which I am a part? And what am I in it?' Other typical modernist quesions might be added: What is there to be known?; Who knows it? How do they know it and with what degreee of certainty?; How is knowledge transmitted from one knower to another, and with what degree of reliability?; How does the object of knowledge change as it passes from knower to knower? And so on." (McHale 8).