Narrative Levels
The concept of narrative levels, also known as diegetic levels, takes into consideration the fact that it is common to find a variety of acts of narration in a single text. To assign each of these acts a level, then, is to define them in relationship to one another. It is at the extradiegetic level that a text's overall narrative is transmitted. Within an extradiegetic narrative, and at the intradiegetic level, a story within a story is told. Within this narrative level, yet another story may unfold, this at the metadiegetic narrative level.
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