Is Metadiscourse Possible? (A Flashback)

Here's something I wrote in 1998. Looking back on it now, I wonder what in the world I was thinking. I obviously had a limited understanding of point of view.
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Andrew Keating
Rev. Rechtien
EN 3362W
November 2, 1998

Is Metadiscourse Possible?

      When characters within a story engage in the anomaly of metadiscourse, they can easily get caught in an infinite regression. This regression can interestingly be guided by other characters within the same story. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Polzunkov” a man and his audience discuss this very notion; they talk about the way the man is telling a story.
      Characters in a story may get caught in a brief regression as they tell a story of their own. An infinite regression is what philosophers call “the method of infinite descent.” For the purpose of this analysis, an infinite regression is when a character discourses the plot of one story within the framework of another story, which inevitably leads to the telling of another story within the original story as well. As confusing as it may seem, similarly, in mathematics this concept applies when “it can be shown that for any number, if [the original number] satisfies the condition then there is a lesser number that does also, the method of infinite descent then allows the inference that no number satisfies the condition” (Flew 174). Within one story may contain the intriguing subsumation of infinitely many stories (numbers).
     The regression can and must be guided by other characters within a story or metadiscourse to be effective. When talking about the discourse of a story while still inside the story, a character is doing what one might do when standing between two mirrors; the person’s reflection (metadiscourse) may seem to go on forever. When the man--Osip Mihalitch--finally begins to tell his story, a crowd gathers around giving him responses as to how to tell the story. For instance, Osip begins his discourse with: “gentlemen, allow me to tell you something. I can tell you a good story about Fedosey Nikolaitch” (432). The crowd responds with: “tell it, Osip Mihalitch, tell it” (432). The crowd responds with the demand and guideline of “no puns!” (432). It seems the characters in the audience serve are a heuristic guideline in that a pun--a humorous use of a word to suggest another that sounds the same--should not be used, otherwise Osip’s story will continue to go on forever.
     Dostoyevsky’s story is about a character--Osip--who tells a story about how he is going to tell his story, wherein another character within Osip’s story will begin to do the same, and so on.