Consciousness in Metamodern Era: Rereading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

Introduction
This article examines the issue of consciousness in The Bone Clocks written by David Mitchell as a metamodernist novel. Specifically, this article first defines consciousness and observes the characteristics of the issue of consciousness in this new era. Then, recognizing specific modernist and postmodernist characteristics of the researched work, shows how some metamodernist elements, especially in the issue of consciousness, are changed by modernist elements and to what extent these elements fluctuate between modern and postmodern eras. Rereading this novel with a metamodern perspective, the authors prove that, knowing about a person’s previous behavior leads to the prediction of his future behavior, hence, it is easy to gain awareness of his choices, which is the reason consciousness in the characters of this novel is inculcated. In this article, the authors aim to challenge metamodern theory and conclude that in this era, consciousness is predetermined, optional, and inculcated.
Background of the Study
David Mitchell refuses the old rules and commits to the fact that death is not the end of consciousness; quite contrary, it can emerge as a god-like, incarnated presence in another shape. Sami Paavilanin also insists on this fact in Mitchell’s novel in which he represents beings who are the incarnation of old selves. He claims that the presence of Atemorals and Horologists in this novel can defend the idea that consciousness can be relocated from one body to another. Also, metamodernist writers utilize a kind of stream of pre-consciousness to refer to the characters’ instincts, that they were aware of the consequences even before they commit to action; however, they intend to manipulate this fact. None of the previous studies in the field of metamodernism examined the roots of this pre-consciousness, though this article aims to conceptualize this very fact.
Methodology
Irma Mayer believes that analyzing a text, a metamodernist must redeploy between modernism and postmodernism, then decide which can offer a better solution to the problem. Oscillating among different poles and recognizing the binaries can help to evaluate the characters’ behaviors regarding consciousness. In the 2010 article ‘Notes on metamodernism’, Vermeulen and Van den Akker argue that metamodernism is a concept which “oscillates” between modernism and postmodernism and they describe it as a “structure of feeling” (101). They state that “metamodernism should be situated epistemologically with (post)modernism, ontologically between (post)modernism, and historically beyond (post)modernism” (101), which suggests that they believe it is possible to go back to modernism, while also acknowledge that modernism is something of the past. Other thoughts such as Bourdieu’s ideas on habitus and the game that each field presents to the characters, as well as Zizek’s idea of the real enlighten how the writer justifies the characters’ consciousness.
Conclusion
Although the consciousness of the characters in this novel appears forced, at the same time they are considered optional, because the choice is theirs from the very beginning. In this article, it was suggested that in the metamodern era, opposite poles are in flux, and unlike the postmodern era, which considered feelings and emotions to be invalid, the current era has put the mental position of the characters in relation to each other and wants to be emotional and arouse emotions. Another point that this work portrayed was that everyone has a version of reality; therefore, the characters reached their mental awareness according to what was objective for them. The external events are not unaffected and in fact, it is the external events that control the consciousness, though, at the same time it is an internal and instinctive consciousness. This pendulum-like swing between polar opposites aptly captures the mutual characteristics of both/neither dynamic.