Busting through walls

As I’ve been reading The Filth I’ve noticed something that occurs more often than I have ever experienced in a story and/or book before. Characters are aware of their surroundings, not only within the story but in the physical parameters of the graphic novel. It is as if they are aware of the graphic novel world that they are living in, are aware of its advantages and also its limits. For example the use of the crack in the book as a wall and references to it as the story progresses such as on page 64 when Harley refers to it as the “page wall”. Also on the top of page 62, which contains one panel at the top Harley states “You have one panel Continuity freeze to join us here in cabaret, herr mercury”.

So I find myself asking, why break the 4th wall, the boundary between fiction and reality? There is a different type of relationship that occurs when characters break the 4th wall. This can open up into a wide range of scenarios. Instead of the reader being an outside observer and not being acknowledged by the characters in the story. Where some may say this eliminates any emmertion one might have in the narrative Characters within the story AND the readers are now aware of each other or at least aware of the outside world, which, i assume is the author's purpose. The reader cannot help but observe the actions and dialogue between the characters, realizing that these characters are even smaller than before, not only are they individuals living in a the large world found in the book but the are a piece of something even greater. As I stated it class I try to read new literature with and open mind, free from assumptions, and this has allowed me to discover and appreciate events and tools such as these that are made by the author. So what does it seem the characters are trying to show? I’m not completely sure yet other than what I stated before, that they are just smaller parts of even a bigger picture not confined by even the barriers that are drawn and written on the page.