Considering the case of the Discworld, however, it becomes clear that we are dealing with a multidirectional, multilayered parody, generally without clear allegiances. He was dissatisfied with modern parody, as is well known: parody can be a controlled affair with one position subsumed under the other, which would appear to be what Bakhtin saw and criticised as narrow and unproductive ridicule in modern parody (Bakhtin 1981:71). As Bakhtin pointed out, it consists in the meeting and intermingling of different positions (Bakhtin 1981:59). The Discworld thematises these issues in both form and content: firstly by the very nature of parody, and secondly through the ludic, carnivalesque universe and its characters. Such a reading does become more plausible, however, when seen in the context of the Discworld universe itself.
Reading this as a rejection of the static structuredness of Being, an affirmation of the impossibility of such a reduction of Life and Becoming, may seem tenuous.
There is, then, an instability to the ordering of the series itself it is reaching outside its borders and creating semi-borders to be overstepped. Finally, the books of the sub-series are not published sequentially: a Witch book may be published between a Rincewind and a Watch book, for example, or the other way around. It should be noted that these sub-series in themselves are not fixed and clearly separated: they bleed into one another through characters like Death, who is everywhere, or through characters being introduced in a setting different from their normal one, a technique which mirrors how Pratchett treats other patterns and their naturalised positions, as I will show later. The Discworld can be roughly divided into sub-series such as the Witches, the City Watch or the Death novels, but there are also stand-alone books which take part of the Discworld universe without belonging to such a sub-series, such as Small Gods (1992) or Pyramids (1989).
The subdivision of the current 36 Discworld books is not a matter of linearity or homogeneity. Finally, I will show how Pratchett, by using the Discworld as a background for more specific parody, manages to avoid Bakhtin’s charge of modern parody as narrow ridicule. I will also show through an analysis of some of Pratchett’s characters how narrative conventions are undermined. This paper will look at how Pratchett’s universe creates a ludic parody through its use of juxtaposition, puncturing and awareness of stereotypes.
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