Abstract. In this article of our research we analyze “Mantissa” a specific type of self-reflexive metafiction. “Mantissa” can be read as a reflexive work focusing on the art of writing, creativity, and how in extremis the real is depicted. As such, it is firmly part of Fowles’s aesthetic, a formal exploration of fiction’s apprehension of life, of the world, and of the inner self. Novel, characterization can be said to have been conducted almost always around a representational function, and characters in novel have conventionally been aimed to represent the social, economic, and psychological realities of individuals. The aim of this article is to examine the ways postmodern fiction transgresses the conventions of novel-characterization and analyses of characterization in John Fowles’ Mantissa to illustrate how postmodern fiction explores certain postmodern concerns through its characters and thus sets a new mode for characterization in novel.