Parody, Fragments, Collage And The Art Of Indeterminacy

The latter half of 20^th century has witnessed radical changes on economy, culture, science and thought in America. In this social condition, a group of postmodernist writers (Donald Barthelme, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Coover, and John Barth, to name just a few) began to appear in American literature. These writers are delighted in innovation and experiments with the language and structure of the novel. Their works share some similarities: they admit the fictive nature of the novel, deny the objective depiction on the external world, emphasize the constructive function of language, and take on a playful attitude toward their works, which invites much criticism from the critics.Donald Barthelme is one of the most influential innovators. His innovation even "changes the forms and styles of American short fiction," thus he has been proclaimed as "the most imitated writer in [America] today." Compared with the studies abroad, the study on Barthelme in China has just taken the initial step. By far only one of his novels and a few of his short stories have been translated into Chinese, and Chinese critics did not pay much attention to him until 2001 when a brief introduction to him and several short stories in Chinese were released in Foreign Literature. Even now not many Chinese critics know well about Barthelme, not to mention his fiction. Compared with Barthelme's position in today's American literary circle, importance attached to him in China is far from enough. In America most of the writings of Barthelme have been studied carefully from the perspective of the language, style, culture, and etc. Therefore, the primary purpose of this paper to look into his novel Snow White is to promote the interest in this important postmodernist writer and his works.Snow White is Donald Barthelme's masterpiece, and the classic of postmodernism. His innovative application of indeterminacy, parody, fragments and collage makes a bright fairy tale into a collection of irrelevant fragments or, in Barthelme's own words, "the dreck". The noble princess, the brave prince and the lovely dwarfs do not exist. The reader' expectations are broken. In the novel, there is no center, no background, no plot. All the traditional ways are abandoned, and language becomes the real protagonist. In an absurd form, the writer mocks and satires the modern American society from different perspectives. The innovation in techniques makes the themes in the novel concede to the...