The Tempting Signifier: Covert Deixis and Ontological Suspicion in Ali Smith’s The Accidental

If postmodernism is a house of mirrors, Ali Smith’s The Accidental (2005) acts as the stone thrown through the glass. Yet, the novel appears to recoil from the explicit metafictional pyrotechnics of its predecessors, presenting a critical puzzle: how does Smith dismantle reality without breaking the surface tension of her prose? This article proposes a reading of the novel not merely as a metafictional game, but as a precarious exercise in “covert deictic potential.” By placing Brian McHale’s (1987, 1992) “ontological dominant” in tension with Andrea Macrae’s (2010, 2019) cartography of “discourse deixis,” I ask whether Smith is operating a narrative stealth mission. While Macrae’s model typically illuminates explicit metafiction, this essay explores how Smith repurposes these signposts to remain hidden, requiring the reader to unearth them. Through a synthesis of these narratological tools and a reevaluation of the Heideggerian Pseudos (the “false” that reveals), I suggest that the character of Amber functions less as a protagonist and more as a specific narrative algorithm. Through an archeological excavation of the text, we might discover how Smith forces the reader into a co-authorial role, transforming the act of reading into a volatile exercise in world-making.